Overtraining

This week I've just been feeling terrible. Not sick. Not injured. Just generally shitty. I'm used to being tired from running, but this is a pervasive sort of crappiness that's extra crappy. And I finally figured out what's going on.

I've been overtraining.

Two weekends ago I ran a half marathon. And it was great! Then I ran 55 miles in the seven days afterwards. In the 4 days from Thursday to Sunday, I ran 12 miles, 8 miles, 8 miles, and 13 miles. Oh, and somewhere in the midst of that, one of my students was promoted to black belt. Which involved over 3 hours of beating him near to death. Luckily he was maid of pure titanium.
 

Experts in not dying.

On Monday I ran a comparatively short 6 miles, and struggled to run under a 10 minute pace. On Tuesday I ran just 4 miles, and felt like I was trying to run through pavement rather than on top of it. Yesterday I ran 3 miles. Three! And it was hard. Like the first time I ever ran 3 miles as a fastass. Slow, plodding.... Just plain gross.

It's the peak of my marathon training. I have a little over a week left of killing myself before I get to start tapering. Sweet sweet tapering. Most runners hate tapering. It drives them insane. But right now it sounds like naps and cupcakes. Just all the nicest things in the world.

So how do I know I've been overtraining? Because I have all the symptoms.

The first one is fatigue. It doesn't matter how much I sleep, or rest, or if I'm just sitting. I'm just super tired. I wake up tired. There's no ups and downs throughout the day. Just all down. Walking is hard. Coffee doesn't spruce me up. It just makes me jittery. Even typing is exhausting.

My muscles are sore, and refuse to get unsore. I only did 3 miles yesterday, but today I feel like I ran a marathon. My shoulders are sore. I guess from carrying grocery bags? My forearms are sore from all this rampant typing. My legs feel like they're on fire. All the healing faeries in my body are on strike.

My heart rate is crazy. I woke up this morning with my heart racing. I could feel the blood blasting through my veins. It was a bizarre feeling, like my heart was pumping lava. I took my pulse and it was somewhere in the realm of "about to have a heart attack." I finally got out of bed because I was worried the blankets would catch fire.

And the thirst! I was thirsty all night. I kept waking up to drink water. My mouth felt like a desert. Not a dessert. I wish there was a dessert in my mouth. No. A desert. Dry. Other adjectives. But mostly dry. So thirsty. I'm drinking so much water right now that my stomach feels like a swimming pool. This post would be done already if I didn't have to pee so much.

I drank this in about an hour.

Then there's the mental symptoms. Before I realized what was going on, I wondered, why the hell do I hate myself so much right now? I was feeling depressive, and super irritable. I mean, I'm always hard on myself. But it got to a ridiculous level. Like I would have trouble operating a door handle and would berate myself for being the most worthless human in the world. I thought, "Gah! I can't even open a f#@*king door! I hope a truck hits me and rids the world of this mentally challenged douchebag."

Yeah, not good.

Part of the problem was that I didn't eat enough food early this week, especially protein. My body is in a catabolic state. I'm not exactly sure what that means. I think my body is trying to eat itself to keep itself alive. Which doesn't totally make sense. But I ain't no scientist. I attacked this issue head on last night. How?

I ate an atrociously massive amount of food.

Geoffrey's sexy lady friend, Meghan (I asked and she says I can use her actual name!) made chocolate chip cookies last night. And I ate all of them. Not some of them. All of them. She made cod. I ate that too. I was already drinking beer. But they had opened wine, so I drank that too. I ate a Klondike bar. I ate, like, so many peanuts. I can't even remember everything I jammed into my face.

On Monday I ate about 2000 calories. On Tuesday I had 2500. Yesterday I ate over 5000 calories. Five. Thousand. On a Wednesday. I kept trying to go to bed. And Meghan and Geoffrey said, "nooooo, stay with us! Eat more cookies! Drink more wine!" And I did.

The last picture of me looking skinny.

Usually I get pissed at myself for overeating. But I'm thankful I did. My body desperately needed the calories. And despite all my complaining above, I actually feel a lot better today. My legs are still sore. But knowing why I've been feeling down, and eating enough food to save all the starving children in Africa has made me feel a lot better.

As usual I don't have any great advice. I don't really write anything useful in my blog. It's mostly just vanity. "Look at me! I run and write and take pictures and stuff!" The advice in this case is kind of obvious though.

Rest. Drink water. Sleep. Eat (a lot). Rest more. Maybe don't run 20 miles. I'm going to try to do all that. Try. I kind of suck at doing the smart thing. Already I'm punishing myself for my kingly feast by only consuming seltzer and pickles today. And I'll run today. And tomorrow. And the day after. So yeah. Terrible at giving advice, and extra terrible at following it.

There's a great possibility that next week I'll write a blog that says, "my legs fell off. They literally fell off." So look forward to that!

"I always look forward to your demise."