Overdoing it?
Usually, I post an overview of my week in sports on Mondays. But the past two weeks, I haven’t been working out much. Most days, I felt too tired and my knee has been irritated for a couple of days now. Have I been overdoing it in the past few weeks?
On Monday, I usually hit the gym for either strength training or full body training on the ergometer, but it is always a busy night at the gym. I noticed that this idea was annoying me so much that I opted for staying at home and not doing much. Usually, I enjoy being around people, so this was my first warning sign.
Looking back at the track trainings, I have been less careful than I would’ve wanted. I did limit the mileage every week, but the interval trainings have been quite intense and I felt ready to go again. In retrospect, the track causes a different type of strain on your body (as a track veers more, it feels less hard and you bounce forward more easily, but your legs do need to get used to it). My knee started to hurt more with every activity I did.
I ran enthusiastically, but maybe my legs needed some more adjustment time. So I chose to have a slow week and skipped the Thursday training. I did a lot of foamrolling and some core training en tried to sleep more. A short run on Sunday did not hurt my knee, so I felt content with the decision to take some rest. Last Tuesday I felt better so I went to track training.
It was brutal! We combined intensive and extensive interval and ran 5x100m with 10 seconds rest after the warming up and technical training. Yeah, doable, nice. It was just an extra warm up… the rest of the training consisted of 5x 6minutes with 90sec rest, increasing in pace. When we thought we were done, we did two final 80m sprints. I actually hit 20km/u on that one! (The cooling down was very slow after that hahaha, legs were DONE).
I slept like a baby after this training, totally wiped out… I was even too tired to do core and foam rolling. So the next day, when I attempted to sprint for my train – Yes. Attempted. – it felt like I was still walking. My legs were só empty! Hmm. Maybe I should have a look at my refuelling after trainings as well. More on that in another blog!
No matter how I felt the day after, yesterday was Thursday, so another training planned. Luckily, this was an easier one. Only 2x 1200-600m with 2 minutes rest. For the final 600, I had to pace the group and I always find it quite difficult. I’m not yet experienced enough to feel what pace I’m running, but I’m learning!
And today I actually feel good. My knee hasn’t been hurting since Saturday and I’m not as tired as I was last week. The extra rest definitely did the trick, and I was just pushing my limits a bit too enthusiastically before. One of my resolutions for this year, was to be more sensible in my training and keep an eye out for exhaustion of my body. The past two weeks learned me an important lesson – it’s not always about the distance, the pace, rest and terrain also impact your recovery time.
For now, I will stick with running three times a week and doing yoga once. A lot less than I used to do, but with the long commute every day, I should also allow myself some time to get used to the more intense training! The marathon is coming closer every time I blink, and I am really looking forward to it! (And yes, I’m also nervous…) How do you balance life and training? And do you know when to take a step back and rest a bit more? Share your story with me!
Running Ella 