Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Overtraining

With the orthotics I've been raving about over the last two weeks I felt invincible and made a bit of a mistake last week. Particularly since I was just coming back off an injury and am in relative terms reasonably new to the whole long distance running thing & got a bit carried away, yet again.

Upon doing a 21km saturday week ago I was thinking to myself last wednesday after already running a 10 and 12km on mon/tue that 'hey, i did 21 comfortably enough on the weekend, I think I'll do another one'... which I did on the wednesday.

Feeling a little achey after the 21km that I did a little slower I thought all was going well if I gave myself the rest of the week to recover and to get out yet again on Saturday for another long run.... which I did, 22km's this time with the last 1km however in pain. Runner's knee on my right knee. I guess that the ideology of ONE long run a week is there for a reason. Since the last four days I have been in major ice / anti-inflam mode to try and reduce the pain.

Two weeks ago I ran 45km, last week 65km. "What a mistaka to maka" I think that I will be sidelined until this weekend at the least and once again have to bounce back from injury. Being enthusiastic is one thing, but not listening to sound advice from others and overtraining is another.

It's a lesson commonly learnt the hard way by those starting out and I'm kicking myself for being so stupid. On a side note though I am pretty happy with the distance I covered :)

4 comments:

trailblazer777 said...

Well done on nailing another 20km+ run thats two banked now, so a weeks break wouldn't hurt.

Might be time to do some cycling,swimming, weights (gym) or some other sport as a crosstraining alternative, or even build it into your week, as its just not necessary to make every! session a run session IMO, although many seem to disagree. Physio beckons?
anti-inflams and cold packs good for most things, also lots of stretching exercises AFTER your run. Some swear by massage too.

I would advise you dont up your mileage too much above 60-90km a week this year. Be good to build in an easy week at least once every 4 weeks, or even every 2nd week. AKA periodizing. Good to see you have worked out why 1 long run a week is enough for most weekend warriors...

maybe next year you'll be running past como jetty in the perth marathon??

Celeste said...

That over-training sure is a trap all right. Been there (still there) not impressed.

Meanwhile, I'm also pretty impressed with your distances!!

Anonymous said...

Hey, I can comment now :-)

But someone forgot the 10% rule, I won't lecture, I am prone to getting carried away with myself. I used to get quite a bit of knee pain when I started out but it settled down after a couple of months and I haven't been troubled since. I do take Glucosamine every day which may be helping.

Trailblazer had some good advice there, well worth following.

Anonymous said...

I am always amazed how runners, who are generally logical, smart people, can talk themselves into just about anything when they just want to run. :} I have been guilty of the same crime of passion.