I'm overtrained but have a race in 2 weeks!

Ok, i've finally come to terms and accepted what my coach told me was probably going on....I'm overtrained.

For the past 8 weeks, I've been training hard for my first triathlon of the season. It's just a sprint tri, but I'm also trying to prepare for an Olympic in July so I've been trying to work hard. Most of the people I train with are at a higher level than I am, so I definitely push myself. I feel great that I am making big improvements, but over the past couple of weeks I've just felt like I burned out. My coach said I am most likely overtraining, which is also made worse by the fact that I'm probably not eating enough to sustain and recover from my workouts and I've had a monster amount of stress the past couple of weeks.

I looked up a lot of articles on triathletes and overtraining and I definitely have a lot of the symptoms (insomnia, change in appetite, sustained soreness and achiness, fatigue). As much as I hate to take an extended break from training (like a week), that's what most of the articles say is needed for proper recorvery. BUT I have a race in 2 weeks! I don't have time to take a week off right now. I don't know what exactly I should try to do. I'll talk with my coach next week, but wanted to know if anyone has advice.

I only did a super slow, short ride (like 10mph and 6 miles or so) today. I was going to run and ride tomorrow but I think I'll take the day off as well as Monday. I know that can only help, but will it be enough wehn I go back to training on Tuesday? Any advice is appreciated!

Remember training makes you weaker, recovery makes you stronger. When you train you are damaging your muscles. During recovery they repair themselves, adapt and over compinsate a bit when they rebuild.

Every advice, article and book I have read said that a week of your A race should be an easy week. This is to make sure you are fully recovered and at your A game for the event. What does your coach suggests you do?

My advice, and keep in mind I am just a random poster on the Internet, is to temper off this week. Try to get as much sleep as possible. The week of the race make it very easy, maybe one day with intervals sometime mid week, and something easy the day before. After the event see how you feel. If you are still burned out take a week off, do something else have fun.

UD

Thanks, UD. What you said is right along the lines of what I was thinking I'd do. Tues/Wed will probably be hard workout days, but after that I'll start to back it off, especially next week.

I haven't spoken to my coach too much about it. I had emailed him telling him I was just hitting a huge wall and was really frustrated and he said I was most likely doing too much. I was supposed to talk to him about it at the next workout and didn't. I did talk to him about how I was probably not eating enough to sustain the workouts though. So I started working on that a little and now it's time to work on the burnout.

I did an epsom salt bath last night and my muscles (especially my hamstrings that have been horribly tight) are feeling a little better today. So hopefully tomorrow will be even better!

definitely take a break... a week off and then a week of just short 15 min HIIT sessions, 3 are good per that week.

there's a member here that trained for a marathon just by doing short HIIT sessions. It's the best endurance builder ever and will spare your muscles pre-race (infact it'll help with muscle growth). 

I got exercise induced anemia from overtraining (for dance which is different but i consider it quite the sport), along with messing up my electrolyte balance, plus my muscles were just out. I had to take a 2 week break completely off and recovered after that. Good luck with your race, and i agree with plenty of sleep and proper hydration. I'm also another random person on the internet so definitely take the expert opinion over anyone here, but i hope this helps!

thanks! hey, dance is definitely a sport! glad to hear you were able to recover fairly quickly. I became anemic last year (I've always had iron problems on and off) but never thought that it could have been due to my training. They ran a bunch of tests and never found a reason for it so maybe it was because of my training? interesting.

Thanks for your responses. I was asking for the advice of random internet posters so I definitely appreciate it! There are so many people on here with so much information and personal experience about so many things, it's a great little source of information!

Congratulations on doing your first triathlon!  That is HUGE!  You are entering what is called the taper period.  Your training volume should be cut back to 60% two weeks before your race, and 30-40% the week of your race.  What you should be focusing on now is short easy workouts with very brief intervals to keep the fast twitch muscles firing.  We don't want them to forget their responsibilities!

Part of taper, of course, is the madness (taper madness).  Everybody else is still training and working hard, and you are resting up and recovering for your race.  It is HARD!!  Come race day, you want to be 100%, and you can use all that pent up energy to burn the course!

Have fun, and good luck!

hey Katie! glad to hear you've been finding it useful here. I don't really want to go off topic but since you mentioned that you became anemic but never found a reason, it's because sports anemia is not clinical and is a phenomenon or 'pseudoanemia'

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/152194

also, my fav go-to book, Diet for Dancers by Chmelar & Fitt explains the technical aspect too:

"..In this condition, the production of hemoglobin, the oxygen carrying molecule in the blood, gradually falls behind in terms of supply-and-demand. With the increase in exercise, greater amounts of oxygen must be transported and more hemoglobin is needed to do so. The body makes hemoglobin at a rate usually sufficient to keep up with demand, but as exercise continues, the production of hemoglobin can fall short.."

<< so basically this explains it!