It would figure.
I go the whole season--swimming, biking, running, doing yoga, lifting weights, trying Pilates, teaching cycling and water aerobics--without being overtrained.
I shift to a single-sport focus, and boom. Overtrained.
(Of course we all know that it's not really a single-sport focus; it's two simultaneous single-sport focuses!)
Actually, it might be a little bit deeper than overtraining. Physiologically, I'm having a little trouble; I'm achy in ways (and in places) I normally don't have trouble. But my resting heart rate is at 48 BPM (right where it should be), and I'm not having any trouble getting it up for workouts.
But I just don't want to train. I would rather stay at home and sleep, or play DDR. I haven't run in a week and a half, haven't swam in a week. I've been biking plenty. But I always bike plenty.
Here's the deal: I don't have a lot left to do, in the way of triathloning. I want to maintain the speed I have for Redman (which is in three weeks). But that won't take much more than one hard workout a week (which is one more run workout than I've been doing lately). And the race I'm targeting for the one-mile PR is in early December. Plenty of time.
The main thing I'm struggling against is a self-conscious feeling of laziness. Is it guilt? I'm not sure. I just know that it makes me nervous not to be swimming and running. Makes me feel that I'm not doing enough. Of course, I'm still training hard on the bike (and still enjoying it!), which is exactly one more sport than your average person trains hard for. But it feels strange not to be doing at least three swims and at least three runs each week.
Man, this sport makes you crazy.
I've been struggling with the same thing all summer. For some reason, I feel like I've been slacking all summer. I was surprised when I looked back and saw that in June I trained more than I think I've ever trained in my life. There's just something about the variety of training for 3 sports that makes me feel fresher even though I'm training more. And if I can't hammer one day in one thing, I can still hammer in something else. Having to spread it out over the week in just one sport just doesn't give me the same rush. I think that's why *I* wound up choosing to do ironman over the RAAM qualifier this fall.
ReplyDeleteWhat's more, though, is that I'm finding now that I'm running again is that running is really, REALLY counter-productive to cycling. Almost as soon as I started running again, my cycling legs fell off. Have you tried reevaluating your goals on a good day, a bad day, and a just okay day? Do you STILL want to pursue the single sport thing under all those circumstances?
By the way, if you DO figure out how to successfully deal with this stuff, please share some tips. I feel even more lost than you do!