Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

In my training recap post yesterday, I mentioned that two weeks ago I basically blew up after struggling for several weeks prior to that. I’m still not totally sure what went wrong, but I have some theories and have decided to change a few things to see how my body responds. The whole crash and burn could have been due to any number of things, including but not limited to stress, dietary issues, allergies, and overtraining. In reality, it was probably a combination of several or all of those, but regardless, it was a wake-up call that definitely led to me re-evaluating what I was doing.

The first thing I wanted to take a look at was my training. I’ve definitely put in some decent mileage this year and run some fairly solid workouts as well, but that’s all part of successful training, so you can only limit those things so much and still reach your ultimate potential. However, one thing you have to be careful of when training hard is to make sure you recover so your body can handle the workload. That’s the first thing I’ve decided to address.

Towards the end of last week I decided to strap on my heart rate monitor and see what I could learn (Warning: science/geek-speak coming – lol). Based on what I’ve seen in workouts, including hitting 189 beats per minute (bpm) this past Saturday, I figure my max heart rate is somewhere around 200 bpm. Most all reputable sources say recovery days should be 60-70% of max heart rate, which would put me in the 120-140 bpm range. I think that’s on the low side, so I prefer what Pete Pfitzinger uses, which is a percentage of Heart Rate Reserve (HRR) (see this article - http://www.pfitzinger.com/labreports/hrm.shtml). HRR is calculated by taking your Max Heart Rate and subtracting your Resting Heart Rate. You then take a percentage of that and add back your resting heart rate to get your target. It sounds complex, but it’s really not at all. For recovery days, Pfitzinger recommends staying under 70% of HRR, so the formula for me would be as follows. Max HR (200) – Resting HR (44) = HRR (156). HRR (156) X 70% = 109. 109 + 44 = 153. So, my target for easy days is to stay under 153 bpm. I’ve tried that a couple times now, and it appears it will equate to a pace of 7:25-7:35 per mile, which is a good 15-30 sec per mile slower than I’ve been running on my recovery days. Slowing down by that much could certainly make a big difference when it comes to how I feel day in and day out.

So, slowing down recovery runs is change number one. A second change I’m looking to make is with my diet. I’ve always eaten a decent diet, but at the same time I’ve also subscribed to the theory that if the furnace is hot enough it will burn anything. Additionally, I have to watch my weight, not to make sure I keep it down but just the opposite. When I’m training hard, I can actually get TOO light. This was becoming the case this year. Experience has shown that I tend to run my best at 128-132 lbs, and I’ve been averaging 126, and seeing less than that on some days. It’s a good problem to have, I guess, but it’s still a problem. Furthermore, I’ve been diagnosed as anemic in the past, and how I’ve been feeling lately felt eerily similar to that, so making sure I have adequate iron intake has to be a priority. Going forward I’m going to concentrate on eating healthier, making sure I get a sufficient number of calories while emphasizing foods that are high in iron and protein.

Finally, I may need to address an allergy situation. I used to not be very affected by allergies, but it seems I’ve gotten more so over time. Allergies can definitely leave you feeling lethargic, which is the perfect word to describe how I’ve felt over the last several weeks. I’ve started to take some OTC medicine, and if that doesn’t work after experimenting with a few different ones, I’ll head to the doc to see if I can get something better. If I have to go that route, I will probably also get some blood work done while I’m there, just to make sure everything else is ok. There are certainly lots of other things that could be off, thyroid for example, so even as much as I hate going to doctors, if I can’t get to feeling better quickly with the changes I’m making I’ll go that route as a final option.

So, I’m hoping I can revive my training over the next several weeks using some of the things above. I will say that I’m very challenged by work right now and have a family to think about as my top priority, so I’ll have to compromise here and there in order to not spread myself too thin. I’ll be traveling several times this year and will have to back off during those trips, and travel aside, I’m quite busy day in and day out. I don’t like it, but that’s life. I wish I could pay my bills with running, but I haven’t figured out how to do that yet, so I can’t quit my day job. I don’t want to quit running either, though, so I’m going to try to make the most of it. What’s that saying again? Nothing comes easy, so do what it takes!