Thursday, June 14, 2007

Overtraining and Sickness

As Freud said: "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

Something I'm not noted for with respect to running is objectivity. When I look at myself, my training schedule, and how I feel, I'm about as blind to my own faults as is humanly possible.

That being said, it should be no wonder that I've been prone, in the past, to overtraining. I get sick and have to take a couple of weeks off. I get injured and I have to take a couple of weeks off. Possibly both some day, thought that's not happened- at least, not yet. *knocks on wood*

But sometimes, even if I do everything right, I can get sick. Something comes up, and my immune system just can't seem to fight off a virus, or germ or whatever. Typically my body is healthy enough to beat them down, but not always.

So anyway, I've got a spring cold now. I'm pretty sure it's not due to overtraining, but I really can't be sure. It's possible that after the last two races, my body just decided to say "heck with it! I need a rest!"

I do kind of wish, though, that instead of getting sick or injured, my body would just write me a letter, or something. *sigh* If it does decided I'm overtraining. Because, ya'know... this being sick thing kinda blows.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

even though i have never followed a structured plan until the prep for this fall's 50 miler, i have routinely found that if i ran a consistent mileage for 2-3 weeks and then backed off to about 70% at least of that mileage i was able to recover and not get sick or burned out!