For those who follow this blog, or my posts on social media…you may have noticed I have been pretty silent over the past month or two.

Even though I have kept up my running schedule, I admit I have not been LOVING it.

I haven’t wanted to blog, either and since I blog about running both things have been “have to’s”… which I hate.

It makes everything seem like my job, instead of my joy.

My running/blogging slump is probably due to the aggressive training I have undertaken for my May marathon.

Also, I am getting sick of running in the winter. It’s been cold, windy and snowy/icy.

Even though once I’m out in the cold I warm up quickly, it really messes with your motivation.

Probably a bit of SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) is in there since the sun has been hiding quite a bit.

It hasn’t been fun…I haven’t been looking forward to the next run…I haven’t been excited about any of it.

If I wasn’t signed up for the marathon, I probably would have stayed home most of the time.

Runners would love each run to be awesome… with joy in our hearts as we prance down the street smiling all the way.

The reality can be very different.

Slumping

It can be hard to see what seems like everyone on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter “killing” each run (how did “killing” something be seen as such a positive, anyway).

Meanwhile, I’m over here grumbling as I pull on my cold weather gear (yet again) and trying to find which podcast I can listen to that’s not going to piss me off by interviewing someone who ran an ultra in Siberia.

The hard thing about a running slump (or any slump), is trying to figure out why.

While still getting out there and doing what you’re supposed to.

What If I Don’t Know My “WHY”

Knowing “your why” seems like the “NEXT BIG THING”, and everyone seems to be talking about why they run.

And acting like you better identify it or your running life will come crashing down and you will never be successful.

Not really, but you get the picture.

And if you are someone who really gets your “why”, I think that’s great. I wish I was more philosophical about life sometimes.

I can’t tell you in great detail my why.

I know WHEN it became something that I was pretty passionate about.

I Know My “When”

My husband’s job moved us to Japan for a few years, and our youngest child was still in high school so he was with us.

The great thing about being an ex-pat is the community you find yourself in when you have a kid in an international school.

There are always meet-ups, and classes and field trips for the parents and I have formed life-long friendships with some of them.

But that isn’t when I started to become a running nut.

In fact, I ran a half-marathon with my husband near Mount Fuji and swore I would never run another race again.

After my son graduated from high school, we moved back to the States.

It didn’t matter if I went for a run or did the elliptical…it was all the same to me.

After two years back in the US, we moved to China.

It was a completely different experience. I still loved being an ex-pat. But since I had no children in school, it was just me and my husband.

There is a strong ex-pat community in Shanghai, but it was hard to break into without the common denominator of kids in school.

I’m not someone that will go up to a stranger and start chatting, so I was alone during the week while Dave was at work.

So I started to run. A lot. I’ve always been a walker and seeing new places by foot is a great way to learn an area.

Over the course of the year we lived in Shanghai, I started to look forward to running and seeing new things. The more I ran, the faster I got and some physical issues I had were clearing up.

Loving Running

As I was getting faster, I was getting more eager to see where it could take me. It was during this time that I decided I wanted to run a marathon the year I was 50.

I started to become competitive with myself, and that was a new feeling. I was always the one in games/gym who couldn’t care less if I won or lost.

We moved back to the states, and so I signed up for the Buffalo Marathon.

During that training, every run was anticipated and I loved it. Even the hard ones.

I felt such a sense of accomplishment, and I craved being outside.

If you love to run, you will know what I mean when I say that seeing another runner when I wasn’t running had me jealous and wanting to change into running clothes.

The marathon was awesome, and I wanted to do another.

Not So Much Loving Running

This training cycle hasn’t been like that for most of it. I was eager to get into it, but about a month in I had to admit to myself it was becoming something I didn’t want to do.

That was the hardest part. Coming to terms with not being excited about running.

I have a blog about it! Everyone knows I’m crazy about it! My friends and family hear me talking with glee about having an “18 miler”!

But I was starting to hate it.

That in itself was depressing. My husband says I am so much happier when I can run.

I think it must be therapeutic (the endorphins do make a difference), even though I never thought of myself as needing therapy.

Not wanting to run, but knowing it has a lot to do with my disposition made me nervous. Would I ever find the joy again?

Like they always say…admitting something is always the first step.

That seemed to be the case with me. Once I “embraced” the fact that I wasn’t crazy in love with the runs, I started to try and find ways to make them better.

Besides the awful weather, I think the training I was doing was fatiguing me more than is acceptable.

I’m 51, I have to keep that in mind especially when I’m using a plan from a book.

After really assessing where I was and why I was so unhappy, I adjusted my training and dropped one of the days going from 5 to 4.

Pete Magill

In part, it was listening to this podcast with Pete Magill that convinced me.

Since then, my running has gotten SO MUCH BETTER!

Taking that extra rest day has made me anticipate and look forward to each of the runs, and my legs aren’t so fried.

My paces are back to what I could comfortably do last year, and my endurance is back both physically and mentally.

A huge part of the podcast noted above was devoted to explaining about running workouts and what each is for.

I “knew” all of it, but it was presented in such a way that I realized I was sabotaging myself by ignoring the reasoning behind what each kind of run is supposed to be.

Overtraining and Burnout

Here’s the thing, overtraining and burnout are linked.

When we overtrain we are ignoring our bodies need for rest. We are optimized for results not only when we are working our muscles, but when we are resting them as well.

Muscle repair and elevated fitness levels are reached when we REST. Which runners can be terrible at doing.

So we over train which leads to burnout.

Resting isn’t “taking a break”…it is ACTIVE. It is used by the body to push your fitness level higher.

As an older runner, not taking the time to adjust my training to allow my body to rest was detrimental and making me break down.

Each workout has a purpose and turning each run into a race to run faster is actually a recipe to run slower in the long run (not the literal training long run, the future YOU long run, lol…need to be clear on metaphors when they have the word “run” in them!)

If you have a “bad” run, when you feel super sluggish and it is hard to keep the pace you are wanting… look back at your runs last week.

Did you push? Did an easy run feel good so you turned it into a tempo?

Each run builds on the last one. Our runs are not individual, they connect to make us stronger and faster when we treat the training right.

Overtraining is not only bad for our physical bodies, but it is also bad for our mental selves as well.

Burnout is a very real danger for runners and is not fun AT ALL.

What to Look For:

If you are experiencing any of the following, you may be burned out or very close to getting there:

– poor sleep (this was a HUGE red flag for me when I started having issues)
– lowered immune system (more colds, illnesses than usual)
– mood shifts
– appetite changes
– fatigue that isn’t “normal”…no amount of sleep makes you feel refreshed
– muscle pain that can’t be explained
– bad runs make you feel more depressed than they should…you belittle/berate yourself
– runs that should feel easy are hard, paces or workouts that you would have been able to do a few weeks or a few months ago feel impossible
– legs feel heavy when running all the time

(This list was made from my coaching certification course material: RRCA Level 1)

When I realized that I was probably burning out due to overtraining, I pulled back from my running schedule and eliminated some of the runs.

This helped my confidence immensely. With the schedule not so aggressive, I was able to start building back my fitness to match where I had been.

This definitely took time, and since I was marathon training I wasn’t able to (nor did I want to) take a bunch of time off.

What to do About it

If you are experiencing burn out, look to your running schedule and workouts and see where you may need to pull back and not push so hard.

You may even need to STOP running for a period of time to get your mojo back. Give yourself a two-week break, and see if that improves how you are feeling.

The break may even make you anxious to get started again.

Another strategy you can use if you don’t want to take a break entirely is to run without technology.

Just go out with no pace or distance in mind. Stop and take a picture, take a new route, join a friend.

Coming back from overtraining/burnout can be more difficult if you are training for a particular race. We can be more leery of doing so if we have a particular goal in mind.

You may need to be more strategic in how you back off, but it can be done. I just did it…and reached my goal.

Cut out a “recovery” run…I cut out the day before my long run and used it as an extra rest day.

As an older runner, we need more time to repair anyway. If we are finding we are not fully recovered before our next run we need to take that extra rest.

If you are not working with a coach (and the majority of us are not), but you are getting race training schedules from online or books don’t take them as set in stone!

You need to adjust the training to work for you and where you are.

For example, if you see you are due for a run of 7 miles…look at is as a run of 5-7 miles. If you run by time and you are supposed to run for 45 minutes, look at is as a run of 35-45 minutes.

This way you can assess how you are feeling and whether you need to stop or not.

You will feel like you are able to be successful in your training, without pushing yourself to go beyond what your body can do.

This was a long post and is honestly only scratching the surface of overtraining and burnout.

If you have any questions about it or would like more specific suggestions on how to overcome it by giving me a more personal snapshot of who/where you are as a runner I would love to hear from you.

Use the contact form to send me an email, comment down below or start a discussion on the Facebook page.

A lot of runners experience this, and you are not alone! If I can help make a difference so you don’t give up I want you to contact me.