Signs of Overtraining & What to do About It

[Listen to an audio version of this blog HERE.]

My dietitian is not a “normal” dietitian. She doesn’t tell me what to eat, and we’ve never created a meal plan. She teaches intuitive eating, which is essentially eating like a child: listening to your body’s hunger cues and giving your body the nourishment it needs, sans judgement. One of the things we’ve been focusing on lately is how to eat for ultra marathons. It is a complex thing to battle residual disordered eating habits while simultaneously competing in ultra endurance sports, which by nature, require a high degree of nourishment. Nutrition is only one thing we talk about though. Lately, I’ve been feeling highly fatigued and she has kindly suggested, more than once, that I take a break. Give my body some rest. After training hard for about a year with little to no break, I finally hit a point of undeniable fatigue. Instead of saying, “I told you so,” my dietitian simply outlined some steps to help me feel better. I’m going to break down the who/what/why/where/when of over-training so (hopefully) you avoid it.

How to Tell if You’re Over-Trained

1. High resting heart rate

This is the easiest way to tell if you’re over trained. Take your heart rate every morning and notice if it rises or falls. An increased restring…