The Ironman and Overtraining

This is a statement I read recently. "Remember that when you are not training, someone out there is and you will lose to that person when you meet on raceday."

This statement was directed towards highly competetive athletes, but just the same, by its very nature, this reasoning can lead to injury.

I really believe that regardless if you are a pro triathlete or first time Ironman hopeful, this is not the best thought process to follow.

To me it makes more sense to worry less about the other person and concentrate on the training regimen that's best for you. Being afraid to miss a training day because someone else might get a step ahead of you is a recipe for disaster. All athletes have different physical tolerance levels and must progress within their capabilities and not push themselves when they obviously need rest.

Often an olympic athlete -- like a swimmer for example -- will suffer an injury and be forced to take 4 or 5 weeks off from serious training. Then soon after being back from injury, they enter a competition and have some of the best results of their career. You see it with pro athletes as well. A hockey player misses a week or two of playing and when he returns to the ice he has a career night.

To me the reason for this is simple. They were forced into giving their body a long period of rest that it obviously needed. Chances are they were over-training before their forced lay-off. Their bodies welcomed the rest and responded with amazing results.

Over the years I've had times when I've pushed my body to the limit just to see what I could do and if it would improve my race results. I was capable of enormous training regimens, but ultimately found that training more didn't necessarily result in better race results. More often then not it resulted in injury.

For example: Ten years ago I wanted to see if run-training extreme distances would give me my best ever Marathon result. Over a 5 month period I kept increasing my weekly distance. I maxed out at 155 miles a week. Probably more than most olympic marathoners train on a weekly basis. To reach that distance I had to run around 24 hours a week. It also meant doing two-a-day training. In other words, it wasn't unusual to run 3 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the evening.

The last month of training before I had intended to taper was a monster. The weeks went 140 miles, 145 miles, 150 miles and 155 miles or almost 600 miles in a month plus working a full-time job. It was during the last week and a half that I started to feel soreness in my heels. Like many other odd aches and pains I developed over the years, I just trained right through it assuming it would go away. Well it didn't. It became so bad that I had to go to a doctor and was diagnosed with plantar fasciitis. It was an extremely serious case and cost me the marathon I was training for, and even an Ironman race 5 months later.

NOTE***I did mention to two different coaches that my heels hurt and it felt like they were bruised. They had no idea what it was. I told my doctor the same thing and he knew right away what the problem was. He diagnosed plantar fasciitis immediately. Ironically, when I looked it up on the internet later, it said that the first sign of plantar fasciitis is a feeling not unlike having bruised heels. To this day I don't know how both coaches failed to pick up on it, especially when they were documenting my weekly mileage. They could have saved my year. The lesson here: A coach is not a doctor. If you're injured go to a doctor.

Despite having my heel injected with an anti-inflammatory before the Ironman months later, I had to drop out 5 miles into the run. It was devastating injury and that was the last time I let myself over-train.

It really messed up an entire year.

My suggestion to anyone training for the Ironman is to listen to your body. Its true that often you will get numerous aches and pains and twinges that come and go as you put your body through the rigors of training for a distance event. If you quit training every time something ached, you would never train.

The best way I found to approach these nagging aches and pains was to monitor them "very closely." Say for example your heel begins to hurt like mine did. The first time you notice the pain do one more running workout. If its still there, STOP run training and concentrate on your swimming and biking. That's the beauty of the Ironman. Often an injury will allow you to do at least one of the other disciplines.

See a professional---a doctor or physiotherapist and tell them the problem. Had I done this it may have saved my entire year. Plantar fasciitis would have been diagnosed right away. A program of stretching 3 times a day and maybe some shoe inserts and I could have avoided the injury becoming chronic. At most I would have lost one or two weeks instead of the entire season.

So I believe this is the key to avoiding serious injury. If its a normal ache or pain it will disappear in a few days. If it persists through several training days, stop and get it diagnosed.

Pushing too hard in your training can have another serious consequense as well. You can just simply run out of energy and every work-out becomes difficult. Its times like this that training is just no fun. If you go out on a training run or bike and just know you have nothing in the tank--stop and go home. Take two or three days off completely and do things that have nothing to do with swim, bike, run. Avoid the mindset that you will lose all you've worked for if you take several days off. It just won't happen.

Give your body a break. When you return to training, you'll most likely feel re-vitalized and begin to enjoy training once again.

Strange as it may sound, my best competition year was when I decided to take extra days off whenever I felt drained. It was a complete about face from all the years that I just pushed through the fatigue. Training tired all the time often means you will eventually run out of gas somewhere on the Ironman course. Ultimately you will go into the race tired and thats the last thing you want in a major endurance event like the Ironman.

Remember:

-Listen to your body.

-Take a few days extra rest if you feel tired all the time.

-If a pain persists through a few training days, stop, see a doctor and concentrate on the events that don't aggravate the injured area.

-Don't worry about how everyone else is training. Do what works for you.

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