(top, socks, shorts, shoes ((20% off)))
9.4 miles @ 8:24 average before everyone woke up and then it was straight to birthday celebrating. We got him the GoPro 11 so he was on cloud 9.
We then went straight for some acaí bowls.
Of course we stopped here!
We watched Harry Potter during Beck’s nap and then we went to Top Golf.
We finished off the day with his favorite coconut cream pie!
Arthi asked a great question the other day that I thought I would answer here! “Do your legs ever feel fresh at this point in training? I feel like even with rest days built in, I’m constantly training on tired legs and just accept it until the taper/race day. Also, wondering how you avoid burnout with the high mileage/intensity you do!“
Over the years of training, I have definitely reached burnout with my training. But between some changes I have made and my body adapting to years of training this way (when I first started training with them I thought they were crazy but now it feels normal after a few years of doing it)… I have had a good streak lately avoiding burnout.
I definitely felt burned out at CIM 2019… two back-to-back marathons that year was way too much for me.
So here are a few things I do now to help avoid burnout.
*I run my easy runs at truly an easy pace. I can’t tell you how many times I have told the people I am running with on my easy days that I need to slow down. I really let my body do what it needs on the easy days and could care less what my watch says those days.
*One rest day a week! I might do some light yoga on my rest day but other than that, I don’t walk over 1000 steps on Sundays. I take it seriously.
*I think a lot of times we underestimate our energy needs during training. I really need to make a movie of how much and how often I am eating on a typical day of marathon training. It is non-stop. Back when I wasn’t eating enough (sometimes intentionally and sometimes not intentionally), I felt burned out all of the time. Eating within minutes of finishing each run has made the biggest difference for me in avoiding burnout and getting my body to recover quickly.
*A few months ago, I was feeling off for a few weeks in a row. I was just so tired. I went in and had blood work done, and they have been able to help me with what supplements I needed to get things back to normal again. I feel so much better and will continue to get my blood work done when I am training a lot.
*I sleep so much. When I didn’t sleep much back when I was single, I felt burnout all of the time. Short naps through the day at times helps me a lot too.
*Training with people… I swear I feel burn out so much more when I am running alone but that might just be because I am addicted to socializing as much as I can throughout the day.
*I may have become a little too cautious about injuries. Any time I feel the smallest thing, I stop until the pain is gone. It took about 10 years of training to figure this out. If I get an injury now, it will be one of those things that just hits me out of nowhere… because I refuse to run on something small that will only get worse with more running.
*Get help if you can. When I marathon train, I hire cleaners. I can’t keep up with it all and they are the best. I say no to some things and give myself grace to rest when I need to. We can only do so much and trying to do it all results in burnout.
*We can’t race our workouts! If we push too hard in our workouts, we will burn out before race day. Also, we don’t need to push the w/u and c/d of our workouts. Focus on the intervals and the rest should be at a comfortable pace.
*Having an awesome coach. He knows what he is doing and is always asking about how I am feeling etc, in order to figure out what mileage/workouts I need. Having an outsider telling you what to do is really helpful to avoid burnout.
*Usually, I am doing a few runs a week on the dirt (too snowy this winter) and that helps me to avoid burnout a lot.
*My biggest training burnouts were during stressful times of life. The body keeps score with our life stressors and I can’t handle that and training hard at the same time. Training hard will be there waiting for us when life calms down again.
*Remember that running is supposed to be fun and if it’s not, a break can work wonders! Mental signs of burnout can be things like depression, more anxiety and not wanting to go out and run. Of course its normal to have days where you don’t feel like getting out but if this is happening every day, it could be time for a break.
During marathon training (at least after the first few weeks of training), my legs never feel fresh. Sometimes they feel less dead than other days but the accumulation of mileage and workouts just make them tired constantly. They do feel a bit better during cutback (less mileage and intensity) weeks that happen every 3ish weeks during training. This is what makes marathon day magical… we will be able to run fast paces on fresh legs after the taper!
And PS, an error that I made recently was getting back into working out (the Peloton) too soon after the Big Bear Marathon this last November. Working out helps my mental health so much and sometimes I don’t know how to cope well without it, BUT from here on out, I am going to take a full week off and then gradually begin again after a marathon.
What are some things that you do to avoid burnout? Have you hit burnout with running?
Any errors you have made in your training?
What’s your workout today?
Ever been to Top Golf? Ever been golfing?
