Overtrained, Burned Out, Whatever

I think I've dipped into overtraining. Ever since the Highlands Ranch 1/2 Marathon two weeks after the Leadville 100, I haven't felt great, save a few decent runs here and there. A nasty cold made its way through our house, leaving me with a hideous cough and a host of symptoms that lasted 3+ weeks.

Then, on Friday night, I lined up for the Scream Scram 5K, a great Halloween-themed event in Wash Park in Denver, and ran a decent time and was first master. But today, when I went out for my run, I felt horrible, mentally and physically, and packed it in after 6 miles--something I'll rarely (read: never) do. I'm a warrior--I battle through tough workouts. But not today. After my aborted run, I headed to the gym and did a decent lower body workout--my first time in the gym since March. And I enjoyed pumping iron. At this point, anything that isn't what I've been doing for 10+ years (running) interests me--even this (mostly after I read this awesome interview with a runner I very much admire).

So how did I get here? Over the summer, while out of work, I consistently put in 15-17 hour weeks with over 15,000 feet of climbing--all while dealing with the stress of being out of work and looking for a job. Thankfully, I was sleeping well every night and so I was able to recover between workouts pretty well (or so I thought at the time). But it's now clear to me that the Leadville Marathon in late June, when I ran a scorching time by my own standards, was the high-water mark of my fitness. By the time I lined up for the Leadville 100 in mid-August, I was on the downside of my fitness--mostly because I'd been pushing myself so hard all summer and once again missed peaking for my A race. And so now I find myself fried mentally and physically and not at all interested in running.

I know this is a temporary thing. In time, my love for running will return (it always does). I'm even burned out on my iPod music. Last week, with no new podcasts to listen to (I'm an avid podcast listener), I just ran in silence with my dog, Nick. Whenever I turned on my music, I immediately got irritated and then turned it back off. Such irritation tells me I need a break.

And so I'm now in a break. I don't know how long it'll last--a week, two weeks, who knows? I plan to lift weights, walk my dog and maybe bike a little. Hell, I might even get on that damned elliptical trainer. Anything but run.

All in all, I've had a good, injury-free year of running.

• I re-qualified (by more than 10 minutes) for the Boston Marathon at the Arizona Rock 'n Roll Marathon.
• I set a PR at the Leadville Marathon that will be tough to beat in future years.
• I had an incredible final 35 miles of the Leadville 100, earning another finish at the Race Across the Sky despite puking 25+ times during the race (food poisoning?).
• I stayed healthy throughout the year, except for a nasty sprained ankle that seemed to patch back together pretty nicely.

I have every reason to look back on 2013 with happiness and fulfillment. I am grateful for my good health and grateful to have enjoyed some awesome races. I'm excited about 2014, especially if it means the Western States 100 (and Leadville!), but at this point I need to call it quits for this racing season and kind of rest and rebuild.

How MAF Keeps You Honest: A Personal Case Study

As I begin my Maffetone Method base-building, which will span the next 8 weeks, I want to try to do more frequent blog updates to share observations. I'm by no means a MAF expert; I'm still figuring it out a bit as I go. Part of that process is reading everything I can, but the biggest part of it is just personal experimentation.

This morning MAF helped rescue me from a crappy workout. It was too icy to run outside (the roads in Parker are horrendous), so I hit the treadmill for an 8-miler at MAF. During the first mile my heart rate (HR) unexpectedly spiked to 167 without warning. As GZ pointed out, that could have been related to static or whatever, since Denver is so damned dry. Or maybe my HR just spiked since I was, after all, feeling quite rough from two runs and a weight session the previous day (plus crappy sleep on Wednesday night). In the moment, though, my only reasoning for the spike--again, I was feeling rough--was that I was dragging from yesterday's training. So I slowed down, and even stepped off the 'mill for a few seconds, and got my HR back down to MAF range. Once back in range, I settled into a nice pace for the rest of the way, clocking 8 miles in 1:01:49. During the last few miles I had to slow my pace a bit to stay in MAF. Average HR was 138. Perfect.

 

Without MAF, I would have tried to push through feeling like crap and would have only felt crappier with ever step, digging myself into a hole. We often don't recognize the holes we're digging, but we dig them with one shovel-ful at a time and this morning, had MAF not reigned me, I would have started digging that hole and suffered the consequences for days. Instead, I let MAF pull me into the pace I needed to be in. That is the beauty of MAF! It's not a predetermined pace and it's sure not LSD (long, slow distance). If you're feeling good, then your pace is going to be good. If you're feeling rough, like I did this morning, then MAF is going to "make" you run slower. It's a personalized approach to training, and I love that.

Week Ending 6/3 (Golden Gate Dirty Thirty)

Monday: mountains
AM: 7.45 miles in 2:06 at Mount Bierstadt, a 14,060-foot peak outside of Denver. Very cold and windy. Had a great time with Bob and Scott. A few snow fields here and there but nothing bad. Pretty strong on my descent (wore my Salomon Crossmaxes), though my quads did tire just a little about halfway down. Awesome adventure and the views from the top were spectacular. 2742'.

Tuesday: easy
AM: 7.8 miles in 1:02 on the local trails. Legs a little tired.

Wednesday: easy
AM: 7.1 miles in 55 minutes on the local trails. Legs still tired.

Thursday: easy
AM: 7 miles in 55 minutes. Legs a little better, but still not 100%.

Friday: very easy
AM: 4.85 miles in 40 minutes on the local trails. Legs much better.

Saturday: Golden Gate Dirty Thirty
What else to say except this was an off day for me, even as my intent was to cover the 31 miles as a training run and not a race. I finished 34th overall with a 6:06. Not good; I really wanted a time under 6 hours (by comparison, the winning time was 4:47). This course is no joke; you're at over 9,000 feet for much of the way and are constantly climbing or descending, often on rocky trail. The total climb is about 7,000 feet--not exactly a walk in the park.

From the moment the gun went off my mind just wasn't into it; I actually wanted to DNF when I got to the first aid station, having taken a nasty fall that took a chunk out of my left palm, but I stuck it out in the name of finishing what I start. My legs were tired and flat and lacked speed. I didn't feel motivated to attack any of the climbs or bomb any of the descents. Descents were a major problem for me--not because of skill, but rather because my Hoka Stinson Evos just didn't work well for me on rocky downs (good to find that out now versus at the Leadville 100). They're too high profile for a tall dude like me (6'2") and I found that my ankles were very unstable on the downs, causing me to hit the breaks and run the descents like an amateur. Yeah, I was really missing my Salomon Crossmaxes, which I wore at the Cheyenne Mountain 50K, where I ran the downs very, very well and finished 5th overall with a time I was/still am proud of. You live and learn.

On the good side, I finished pretty strong and never felt really that tired, though the altitude did get to me in a few areas, like the climb up to Windy Peak. More thoughts below.

Sunday: off
Took the day off completely. The most I did was walk to and from the pool with my family and wash both of the cars.

Totals for the week:

• 65.1 miles
• 11 hours, 45 minutes
• 11,500 feet of vertical
• Average pace: 10:50
• 7 total runs
• Lots of core work, push-ups and upper body weight training

Totals for the year:

• 1,460.7 miles run
• 118 miles biked
• 6.55 miles walked

***

The Golden Gate Dirty Thirty left a bad taste in my mouth. It was a mistake to even enter that race. The course is hard enough to totally kick your ass if you're not feeling into it. I entered via the waiting list four days before the race, which means I had no time to mentally prepare. I more or less just showed up with tired legs and struggled mentally and physically for the entire 31 miles. Not very often are the letters D-N-F floating around in my mind five miles into a race, but on Saturday they were. Two-thirds of the way through I was dehydrated, unmotivated and pissed off, but I put my head down and got through it all, somehow managing to finish strong. Oh well....

Taking Sunday off was a good decision. I didn't miss running and instead had a great time hanging out with my family and doing stuff I rarely have time to do, like wash our cars and sit on the front porch with Anne sipping lemonade. We also went to our neighborhood pool and had a nice time together.

For whatever reason, my ability to recovery after workouts has diminished. I saw this with my bad tempo run last Thursday. I saw this in my tired legs after the Bierstadt summit on Monday. And, of course, I saw this at Saturday's (shitty) 50K. Bierstadt should never have done to my legs what it did--it's just 7.5 miles and 2,700 feet of climbing. So what does this tell me? It tells me that I'm flirting with over-training, which is why I took Sunday off completely and will kind of go easy this week with more emphasis on cross training over the next few days (cycling and walking) to get myself back in good shape and ready for the next nine weeks of training.

As for my Hoka Stinson Evos, they're great on smooth trail. But when I'm descending rocky trails, like what you have at the Golden Gate Dirty Thirty, they're freaking awful (for me, at least). I've now had two bad rocky trail experiences with Hokas. Never again will I wear them at a hardcore trail race. Do I still love Hokas? Yes, they're great on smooth trail and road. But for me they suck on technical downs. With my height, I need low-profile shoes for technical descents. Period.

Now, I'll quit my bitching and move on, with my goal still being to crush it at the Leadville 100. It's good I had this opportunity to vent. Thanks for "listening," and please feel free to offer feedback if you'd like.

The Ultrarunner's Quandary: The Fine Line Between Productive, Intense Training and Dimishing Returns

Yesterday my aunt sent me an e-mail asking if I'd seen an article about over-training for ultramarathons that appeared in the Tuesday, 9/7 edition of The Wall Street Journal. The article is entitled, "Why Trainers Say, 'Slow Down'," and focuses almost entirely on ultramarathoners.

Among those prominently featured in the article are Lynn Bjorklund, who set the still-standing Pikes Peak Marathon women's record in 1981, and Julie Fingar, a running coach, both of whom have learned about over-training the hard way. Says Julie as quoted in the WSJ article:

"Type A personalities will increase their training load until something backfires.... In their minds, taking rest means they're not working hard enough."

Says Lynn in the article:

"The body responds beautifully to the right schedule of training stresses.... However, too much stress and not enough nutrition or recovery pushes your body toward injury and illness. You need to stay in that zone of just enough, and that takes a very high tuned and honest appraisal of yourself."

Exactly! FYI, for her own races, Julie runs about 70 miles per week and incorporates plenty of recovery, good nutrition, and cross-training. She's the two-time women's winner of the Rocky Raccoon 100 and has placed among the top 5 women at the Western States 100.

Julie's quote really hit me between the eyes because I am Type A! My wife is also Type A, but somehow we manage a great marriage! Maybe Noah won't end up being Type A, which would introduce a welcome new dimension to our family, but already he's showing some Type A signs. I think being Type A is in many respects a good thing, but you have to understand your Type A tendencies and exercise some self-control, or else your drive is going to grind you and those around you down. This is what Lynn and Julie are getting at in their quotes.

Right now, as I'm nursing a foot that has been stricken with a nasty case of plantar fasciitis (but is improving by the day), reflecting on my training philosophy and considering the differences between training at sea level (as I did) and elevation (as I now am), I see many mistakes and faulty assumptions and am formulating a better approach to my next big race. At 37 years-old, I still have a few more years of optimum performance and don't want to flame out just when my times should be at their best.

My theory is that an ultramarathon training program consisting mostly of running, along with some cross-training and active recovery, as well as core and upper-body strengthening and stretching (as well as a good diet, which I've always had), would be more effective than what I've been doing for the past 4 years: tons of miles, push-ups and crunches, and little else. I'm actually considering this product, in a slightly scaled-down fashion, as a complement to my training or at the very least a good strength builder during the winter months. I think the P90X program could be adapted for long-distance runners in a way that doesn't build too much bulk. Maybe I'll make myself a guinea pig.

Instead of just hammering out 100+ miles per week for my next 100-miler, what if my training was about 80-90 miles per week (with the occasional triple-digit week), along with regular cross-training (biking, swimming, rowing, and walking/hiking), strengthening and stretching? Maybe more intensity and a few recovery weeks, too. Would I then see greater returns and arrive at the starting line better than ever? Maybe it's worth a try.

Hats off to The Wall Street Journal for some great reporting and sound advice.