Over-trained

I had some lofty (yet attainable, I thought) goals for the Anthem Half Marathon next weekend. Despite some crazy-ass weather during January/February (including but not limited to: freezing rain, multiple snow days, single digit temperatures, rainy + windy days, and 3 track workouts in a row where it was snowing and insanely windy down the home stretch) my training was going well, although the mother nature was certainly testing my motivation/determination.

Photo credit: @ritbeard

I was managing to rock tempo runs and long runs (thank you running buddies for helping me!). I even had a couple stellar track workouts. I was feeling confident that I was progressing towards a nice, big half marathon PR. 

*Cue crash-and-burn sound effects*

Then, fecal matter hit the proverbial fan.  My legs started feeling as though they weren’t recovering, my motivation slowly but surely dwindled (and I'm sure whining commensurately increased), the majority of my runs began feeling like death marches, and holding my normal paces, let alone a tempo pace, triggered a lactic acid deluge. I’m sure the stress in my personal life was not helping.

Struggle. Fest.

Quotes from my BIA training journal over the last couple weeks:

“Legs felt terrible/dead”

“...felt really tough”

“Legs couldn’t ‘get-up-and-go’”

So, I backed off my miles, honored my rest days, and tried to have faith that my body would bounce back and start feeling springy again.  I used an 8k race on March 1^st as an opportunity to investigate whether any energy had returned to my lactic acid-ridden legs. 

The result: ehhh. 

The pace felt hard immediately, while I can usually glide through a couple miles with the help of adrenaline. It didn’t help that the course was HILLY. I felt pretty discouraged, but shouldn’t have. My time tied my 8k PR, it was a solid race, but the effort (both physically and mentally) felt HUGE. 

photo credit: Tir na Nog

What does this all mean? It means I’m re-evaluating my race goals for the half marathon. My body is telling me it’s struggling, so it doesn’t seem wise to press on and try to run my goal time. Instead, this seems like a good opportunity to focus on having a blast with a big group of Oiselle girls, and potentially ditching races plans altogether to just run for fun.

How have you bounced back from over-training? I could use some tips!!