Discerning between cumulative fatigue and overtraining
When I talk about the idea of Cumulative Fatigue, as Kevin and Keith Hanson coined in their marathon training, I am talking about a state of training roughly 6-8 weeks before your goal marathon. It’s always been difficult to describe. Where I settled recently was piggybacking on the term functional overreaching. This can be described as a state purposefully going beyond an optimal workload for a short period, but then pulling it back from going too far with a reduced workload (the taper) to increase performance. This isn’t bad. It’s closely related to the idea. Some would argue that functional overreaching is probably shorter than the amount of time we would have somebody in that state of training. I think they would argue that functional overreaching would be a few weeks at most, whereas we are saying a month or two.
To make matters worse, what I often notice is that many runners will push too early in a segment, and then when it gets hard, they say, “This must be cumulative fatigue!” In reality, it might be, but it’s way to early for that, and if they keep going at that rate, it’s just plain old overtraining.
In coach Bill Squires book, “Speed with Endurance,” he gives checkpoints for overtraining, undertraining, and optimal training. What I want to focus on is overtraining and optimal training.
Signs of over-training
- A persistent, growing feeling of fatigue
- Sore legs at the start of runs
- Stiffness, multiple aches and pains
- Incomplete recovery from hard workout to hard workout
- Listlessness during the rest of the day
- Difficulty sleeping
- More effort to run at the same pace
- Feeling like you are getting weaker with training
- Loss of appetite
Signs of proper training load
- Hard days are challenging
- Some stiffness and soreness will follow the hard days, but recovery within 48 hours
- General feeling of being challenged, but do feel like you have some reserve
- Fatigue and soreness occur but are temporary
- You sense getting stronger during the weeks
- Challenged but can handle it
When a person has experienced cumulative fatigue, these lists start to converge when reflecting on how we felt over the last 6 weeks. When I look at both of these lists and think about cumulative fatigue, I would have the following list.
Signs of Cumulative Fatigue
- A persistent, growing feeling of fatigue
- Sore legs at the start of runs
- Stiffness, general aches and pains
- More effort at the start of runs
- Hard days are challenging
- General feeling of fatigued, but some reserve left
- Challenged but can handle it
- Performance not affected, despite fatigue
The main idea here is that this represents how you feel at a specific time in a training plan. For example, If I felt this way during the first 4-6 weeks of an 18 week program, I would say I was too extended for where I was at. By the time I get to those last 6 weeks, I’ll probably be more like the list for overtraining. So, the difference between being an appropriate feeling is the time at which you reach these cues.
When you reach this point in training and you do have 6-8 weeks left, this is normal. However, you still have to be careful. While 6-8 weeks might not seem like a long time, it’s more than enough time. You can either still get into really good racing shape, or you can overdo it and blow completely past cumulative fatigue.
The biggest indicator that you are moving past cumulative fatigue into overtraining-
- Performance is now affected. Not able to hit paces, despite increased effort.
- Incomplete recovery from workout to workout.
- Start feeling weaker in your day-to-day.
- Lost appetite
If you get to this point and recognize it with a few weeks to go, then we can still pull it together. You just have to take immediate action. Here’s what I would do right away.
- Scale back my intensity. Since we are talking about the marathon, I’d focus on only my marathon pace work and my long run.
- I’d give myself 2-3 full days of recovery between each. So, maybe do my Tempo on Wednesday and my long run on Saturday or Sunday.
- Be diligent about caloric intake with a priority to quality protein to repair damage. Carbs to refuel the stores. Take an honest assessment of fueling for workout days.
- Be focused on quality sleep- no screen in bed. Take protein and magnesium before bed.
- Stay moving with easy days. We don’t need a full reset; we need to manage workload and recovery in a short amount of time. We just need the reins pulled back.
As we enter this stretch of training for the marathon, it can be a question we ask ourselves. We aren’t entirely sure if we are where we need to be. This can be even more of an issue if you’ve never been in this position before. Hopefully, this can give you some checkpoints to know if you are on the right path.
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