Soooo . . . hi all! I'm still alive and kicking, despite what the silence of this blog would lead you to believe! I guess stuff has just been kinda busy lately.
The good news is that I aced my midterm; not only that, but I pulled the highest grade in the class with a 99%! What's up, bitches?! Hahaha. SO glad to see all of my crazy studying paid off! But the bad news about my crazy studying (combined, of course, with a crazy-fun Thanksgiving holiday with the fam) is that I am so far behind in my google reader, I want to cry just thinking about it! I haven't even opened it over the past couple days because the number of unread entries is so overwhelming. But today is the day I start chipping away at it. I simply don't have the heart to clear the whole thing out. Slowly but surely, I WILL catch up on all 202 postings!
Now for a little bit of bad news. Don't worry, my dad is just fine; no problems there. But it turns out that I'm not doing so well. Apparently working out twice a day 5 times a week and then attempting two back-to-back long runs every weekend is a good way to end up seriously overtrained. Shit. The overtrained-ness may actually be to blame for my insomnia according to this article. So anyway, I'm in a bit of a pickle. We're getting to the point at school where we are really upping the ante, so to speak; we're getting to training methods like metabolic conditioning that can really kick your ass if you're not careful. So basically, I have no choice but to cut back on everything else a little bit; otherwise, my progress will be seriously halted . . . which is obviously completely unacceptable.
So how am I planning to do this? Well, I've decided I should probably cut my evening sessions back to (at most) one a week. While this makes me a little sad, I know it is what my body needs. I've also decided to cut my weekday runs down from two to one, and reduce that one run from 6-8 miles to 4-6 miles, thus cutting my weekly mileage down from the 40-45 range to about the 30-35 range. Hopefully, this will be enough to combat the overtraining issue . . . if not, I guess I'll have to reassess things further. Ugh, what a drag . . .
Anyway, other than that, things are going just swimmingly. We're getting to some really interesting stuff at school . . . and I am loving it! Ooh, and I get to head back home to NYC this weekend to see Wilson (and my kitty), and to do some long runs in NOT hot weather. Not gonna lie, homies. I'm sorta/kinda really excited about that one!
For now, though, it's time to catch back up with what y'all have been doing! Can't wait!
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Balance is a Real Bugger
Posted by Irish Cream at 3:53 PM
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
14 comments:
I've been wondering where you've been! Nice to get an update once in a blue, Irish! Glad things are going well for you. Yeah, overtraining can be just as bad as no training. I'm glad you're scaling things back a little at least. NYC weather is pretty mild these days so I think you'll actually enjoy running long this weekend! Take care.
Congrats on the exam! Awesome work! Thanks for stopping by my blog despite how many you have in your reader! :D I'm sure your body will appreciate the cutting back a bit, I did the same thing... Enjoy NY!
Thanks for the update. Glad you are OK. It is hard to keep training in balance, given that some of it is school work. Good luck finding the balance, though:)
Great job on the exam! That always feels great!
I'm glad you're recognizing the overtraining symptoms before it gets to something too detrimental to your health! Take care of yourself... balance is a hard thing to maintain. I even have it tattooed on myself as a reminder to try and keep balance in mind, but it's still hard.
If you need to... just mark all as read in your Google Reader. I've had to do that a few times. If I take a week away from it I end up with thousands of unread items and that feels overwhelming!
Hello! :)
way to kick a$$ on the midterm - in true Irish Cream style! don't let Google Reader be another stress - we're all still kickin' and glad to see you're enjoying yourself down in FL! ;)
have a fun weekend with the fam/Wilson/kitteh!
NERD!! highest grade in the class! congrats :)
you have a lot going on with school classes + school workouts, at least you know you'll still be active so it's not like you are being lazy in the least. cut back and make time for a little relaxation and hopefully you can start to add back in a few runs here and there.
Great job on recognizing that you are overdoing it. You'll be happy that you scaled it back a bit. 30-35 miles is nothing to sneeze at!
Congrats on kicking @$$ in school. You are obviously very motivated.
Btw, I know from experience that Google reading stops counting at 1000 unread posts. 200 is not bad. :-)
Good to hear from you! Bummer to hear that you are dealing with ths over-training issue. be smart and take care of yourself. I hope the cut back makes you feel better.
Have a great weekend at home!
Congrats on the midterm! Take that, bitches!
And I was overtrained leading into my TC 10 miler, and I didn't know what to do. Good luck figuring it out!
Great exam result, well done. Does this reinforce your nerd status among your party-hard colleagues or make them jealous?
Overtraining is not a word that anyone has ever used to describe my efforts over 20-years or so; but I am intrigued to learn just what it is from others. Hopefully you are very mild on the symptoms and can work yourself out quite quickly. As I say, rule number one is "know thyself."
And don't worry about catching up on reading. Just hit the 'mark all as read' buttone. See, there, done. Better already!
Cheers, PB :-)
Sounds like school is going GREAT. It really is a good fit for you.
LMAO, hands down you get the best comment for my bike post... thanks!! I may need to think about the whole Florida thing too! Coming down in January... maybe I just won't hop on the return flight home, and have my bike shipped down to me :) Hope you're having a great week!
Wow, I'd love to have that workout schedule! Although I might just be saying that because I'm not in training for a race now.
Post a Comment