Burn out, not of the typical sort

A new training cycle can create feelings of unchecked stress, life sacrifices in scheduling runs, and anxieties about the training load to come. And, interestingly, I feel the most susceptible to burnout here. Just as my body has to incrementally adjust to the higher mileage, my lifestyle requires a parallel shifting.

Let me explain. I’ve done many cycles of training where I jump right back into the fitness I left off with after my last race. Resuming 40-50 mile training weeks after downtime comes naturally. But, often at this point I feel myself subconsciously bottoming out as if I were coming out of a marathon peak week. 

Running into the finish at Bayshore Marathon, Traverse City, MI in May 2013.

With any new workout looming ahead on the training log, I notice my anxiety heightens when imagining the expected pain. It can take several weeks of confidence-building to let my body undergo that stress. Now, I’m equipped with useful cues to help myself experience lessened levels of anxiety before a key workout. During last summer’s training block, I started workout days with a lot of “mini workouts.”

Mini workouts simulate the anxious environment of a “regular-sized” workout while being short and sweet. While the training benefit is probably minimal from these, it sneakily creates a snippet of mind trickery; it is easy to work up the courage to hurt for six minutes. With every subsequent week, I incrementally added on either more distance or more time. For example, the first week may have included six minutes of total work before the second week included ten minutes, and the week after that would have an even higher work load. These very early weeks never include the traditional long and exhausting speed or tempo work at the heart of any training cycle. They simply work to prime the body and the mind for the stacking and building of weeks, reaching the start line as prepared as possible.

On an easy, 3.5-miler recently, I watched the time tick 28 minutes and thought those were the longest 28 minutes of my life. And yet, previous 60-minute runs felt as if they were over in a flash. This is mind training. Many athletes unknowingly sabotage their training by only focusing on the physical parts of training- recovery, rolling, fueling and so on. This is a mistake. The mind will quit far sooner than the body. Brain training ensures that I have the tools, mantras, and wherewithal to succeed. I have learned to take care of body and mind.

I finished my first and only marathon in a respectable time of 3:06:52. I can feel the emotion in this photo to this day. 

Even though I am only a month into my running return and currently topping out at 20 miles per week, I’m already looking forward to the upcoming training cycle and workouts. I hope they start slow and low to help boost my confidence after a long period of injury recovery. Years of stacking cycles has prepared my legs for what’s to come in the next nine months of grueling marathon training. My mind will be fresh and onboard, too.