It's been an interesting winter season with some big highs and a few lows. Highs were the win at the Elleker HM and the 1:14:03 Half Marathon at Gold Coast a few days after my 47th birthday.
The lows have come in the last few weeks, where my attempts to recapture that GC form have resulted in the biggest phase of overtraining sydnrome I have experienced in my relatively short running life. In retrospect, racing 4 HMs, and key 10k and 12k races in 4 months have been a bit much for me to handle.
The signs were there, I just didn't recognise them. The big clue was the 3x3km workout I did at McGillivray on September 6. If I look at the HR plot it's plain to see. In that session, the second and particularly the 3rd felt like hell on earth, but according to the HR (above), I was barely doing tempo effort. Compare this to the plot below for the 3x3 I did on 14 June (9:58/9:57/9:55) the difference is plain to see.
I'd done a lot of fast k's in training in the leadup to that session and had, quite simply, fallen over the edge. Sore legs, lack of desire, etc. all the classic symptoms. The result at the Sydney HM on Sept 18 was an abysmal run where the last 5km felt like I was finishing a marathon. In my regular training I could roll out a 1:19 HM on a weekly basis without feeling it at all. I had a bacterial infection in my finger which didn't help, but the root cause is the overtraining. Since Sydney I've barely felt like running, and am just starting to get the urge back.
Deep down I knew this was happening, I didn't have the self discipline to pull back. I will listen to my body next time....
