I’ve had to re-adjust my days… I’m not used to having this much time to myself  (I typically have two workouts a day).  Because the tent inhibits my recovery and I am so over trained,  I’m taking off 6 months from the tent which again will inhibit my ability to train but will increase my chances of recovering as quickly as possible.

I’ve cut my miles back to 45 miles/week just to get my body and hormones back in balance from over-training that I did between September and December.  Bermuda’s race in January was over the top for me.

The plan is for me to carry a little more fat, giving me little more estrogen in my body which allows my body to stabilize so I’m not training quite so hard.  The negative is that I had to pull out of the elite races I had planned for this winter/early spring season so I’m now shooting for the April time frame hoping that if things in the next month come together, that would be a realistic time to get going again.  If I can be back into good running mode in the next month or so, then I can start putting a good base together in being ready to go for races.

Worst case scenario, I really want to be ready for the Peachtree Road Race- it’s a race my kids can go to, it in my back yard, and it’s the largest 10k in the nation…10ks are my favorite races. It’s the race I ran well at 2 years ago, and I know most of the people involved in it, and sponsoring it so it’s a great opportunity to be with friends and people I know as well as the elite running community that comes in not only nationally, but internationally.

I also see Heart of the Summer (the Minneapolis road race) as one of the best races for me to hit a record in for a few reasons:
-I’m from Minneapolis and I have a lot of local support at that race
-it’s a nice, flat course that I’m familiar with

Some of the elites from the Minneapolis pro runners are there like Katie McGregor who is one of the best 10k runners in the nation, so she’s a great person to pace with and try to make a record with.

Since I’m taking it easy, I started  my 9 mile run today at an 8:30 pace and dropped down to 6:40 at the end, and actually the 6:40 felt really comfortable.   Its an indication that I’m having a relatively normal day amongst the rest…we’ll see how it goes.

On one side, my calf is really tight- I attribute that to dehydration.  I have been so frustrated with my whole running situation that I haven’t been very good at hydrating.  Anyhow, I still attended my pilates class because I’m religious about that, and I’m still wearing my Chung Shi’s because I’m trying to relieve my plantar fasciitis.. I think I’m going to make a shoe change to back to something with a tighter seem around the arch.

I’ve stopped doing massage for the time being because the type of massage I do is very hard on the body and can act like a workout.  So instead of it having a loosening effect, it is contributing to my over-training.

Tomorrow my girlfriends are doing their long run so I might join them… but they are running a little slower so it shouldn’t take much out of my body.

I’ve spent the past few days reducing my mileage- It went from about 80 miles last week to about 45 miles this week, it is a huge hardship to reduce my miles because the whole premise of dropping from 100 to 85 was consistency in being able to have long stretches at 85. Instead, I think it has completely backfired. I don’t think the reduction in mileage has made much of a difference and clearly the intensity of workouts are the problem and at this point I’m over-trained. Just too many intense workouts at one time, and I think that my blood levels are indicating over training. Unfortunately, now, I have to jump way the other way and it’s almost like an injury- I have to wait until my body heals itself and my hormones level out so that I can go back to training.

I’ve talked to several people about what to do and how long its going to take…recovery could be anywhere from 3 weeks to 3 months. Here’s what I’m doing to recover and get back on track with running:

-Keep my mileage low
-Workout once a day
-Take off Sundays
-Eliminate the altitude tent

This week I’ve been running 9 miles a day at an 8:30 pace and it seems hard- which is once again an indication of how over-trained I am.  It affects everything-attitude, feelings, hormones…every aspect of my life.

I’m just hoping that I can get things in order and back on track as quickly as possible.