Around 11, I snacked on these lovely grapes and blackberries. I just love fresh summer fruit!
Then, the Husband and I walked the puppies to the gas station to pick up some change so we could clean out our cars. It is SO hot in Florida right now, and we walked for about 1.0 mile. I honestly thought the little doggies were going to pass out when we got home — their tongues were hanging out soooo low!
If that doesn’t bring out the LOLs, I’m not sure what will! 
It was lunch time, but I wasn’t feel hungry yet. So, I just ate a bigger snack.
Oikos Greek Yogurt with a crushed Kashi TLC bar.
Then, the Husband and I decided to tackle cleaning out my car. Ever since we got the new car, we’ve realized how trashed the Civic is. After washing, shining, waxing, and buffing, you could literally see yourself in the reflection!
The Hus is so detailed-oriented that he’s always in charge of doing the little things like cleaning the dashboard.
Wooo hoo! Clean car!
We came in around 4:00 and I made grilled cheese and tomato sammies:
We recently bought a block of Cabot Extra Sharp Cheddar — it is definitely the best cheddar you can buy and SO worth the $$.
After eating, I could FEEL the exhaustion setting in. I think it’s no surprise that I am so tired lately — I’ve been running on 5 – 6 hours of sleep during the week and I worked 78 hours last week!
I was thinking about my 4.0 miler on Friday and realized that is was SO hard not because I’m building back up my mileage from an injury, but that I was freaking exhausted. When you’re training for a race or increase your mileage, getting proper sleep is JUST AS important as the actual running part.
Speaking from personal experience, here’s the signs of over-training/under-resting to watch out for when you’re running:
- Feeling exhausted even when you do get an adequate amount of sleep.
- Lack of hunger OR extreme hunger. Some people lose their appetite when they overtrain, and other people find they cannot stop eating.
- Easily catching colds.
- Irritability.
- Training in extreme weather — very hot or too cold!
- Trouble concentrating.
- Easy runs become very, very challenging.
If you are properly training AND getting enough sleep, your body should be able to handle your physical regimen. I KNOW that I haven’t been getting enough sleep, and the intense exhaustion I’ve felt for the last three days is proof that I need to sleep more.
Based on this realization, I chose not to work out today. Walking the dogs + cleaning the car was more than enough for me. Plus, I took a 2 hour nap that felt like SHEER perfection!
I’m definitely going to try to get to bed earlier this week — my training depends on it!
After waking up, I made a lovely veggie soup.
The base of the soup was this great vegetable broth, which I found in the organic section of the grocery store:
I roasted some small butter potatoes, celery, and carrots in the oven and then simmered the mix in the broth for another 15 minutes.
That soup tasted SO good with the bread. I had a couple of pieces of chocolate for dessert.
Time for me to RELAX!
Have you ever unknowingly overtrained? I think I need to start putting ‘Sleep 8 Hours’ on my training plan!
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I've definitely overtrained. When I trained for my first half marathon, I was also restricting my food significantly and I was exercising to compensate for the calories I did eat. Before I knew it, I was running 5-6 miles every day PLUS running my long runs on the weekends and hardly sleeping. Guess what, I got sick and got injured!! Now I try to be much more careful
I don't know about over-training, but I have been exhausted lately!
In the past week I've definitely had trouble concentrating, felt exhausted despite getting enough sleep, and had a very difficult time on what should have been an easy run. We're also having a heat wave in New Orleans and I'm thinking I may not be easing up as much as I should be….can something like that contribute to over training?
Gentlewoman – YES definitely! That's a good point — I think this Florida heat is making it worse!
I think I have "over reached" but never overtrained. I took a week off and that helped quite a bit. Overtraining is really serious and takes months to recover from. It is really serious stuff.
I have a bad relationship with sleep. I have a hard time with staying asleep for 8 straight hours, which causes me to sleep longer
I don't think I've ever overtrained. I'm too much of a softie to go overboard. :0P
I routinely don't eat enough before a workout which I'm trying to fix!!
Love the pictures of the dogs. They look tired but blissed out!
Caitlyn, I cannot BELIEVE you worked so many hours last week!! How do you do it??? AND you blog?? Maybe its because I am a newbie, but blogging (and reading other blogs) takes a ton of my time. Hope you get to catch up on your sleep tonight!
Delish tomato and cheese sandwich! I am going to try that sharp cheese. I've been meaning to look for some real good sharp stuff.
I have a question. I love the idea of using kashi crunch bars as a topping for yogurt…do you use both planks in the packet or one to top on your yogurt?
as always i love how in tune you are with your body!
i had a bad history of overexercising. i think the best thing about finally reaching a healthy relationship with exercise was feeling how powerful those good workouts could be when you eat enough, sleep, enough, rest enough. knowing when to stop and when to rest is so so important. just another way to be good to our bodies!
That's A LOT of hours to work! I don't know how you are still standing.
I'm slowly learning to be in tune with my body and tone it back when I feel like I need to rest. When I work too hard and haven't been sleeping properly my appetite decreases because I just don't have enough energy to digest. That's when I know I have overdone it. Thank you monster smoothies!
I hope you get to catch up on some sleep tonight!
Yup, in training for my first marathon, I was definitely overtraining while underfueling at the same time. It resulted in me pretty much sleep walking day to day. I was ridiculously exhausted that I once literally fell asleep on the toilet at school! Another time I grabbed the air freshener off of the bathroom counter and walked out, thinking it was my coffee.
Not fun times!
Oooh, the clean car is so shiny
You definitely seem overextended, missy! I can't believe you've been living on 5-6 hrs a night. I'm glad you're taking a step back and will hopefully be able to catch up soon. You deserve it!!
I can completely relate to the exhaustion feeling. I've been doing a lot of overtime the last few weeks, and surviving on about five hours a sleep a night too. It's not enough! I've got a terrible headache today too, which I think might be a result of feeling so tired.
Get some more sleep! And I will too
heyitstay – that kind of made me LOL even though it's more sad than funny!
coco- both planks, for sure!!
You should definitely take it easy after working so much and getting so little sleep! A lot of people think ignoring their exhaustion and training anyways is the best way to go for improvement. But I find I make my biggest improvements when I'm well rested, doesn't matter how many times I train in a week!
I over-extended myself once by not eating enough when starting a weight lifting program. I had all those symptoms you described. Luckily, I was able to catch it quickly and get my energy levels back up by getting the food I needed
Yes, I've definitely reached the point of overtraining. Last year I was getting injury after injury, and was very irritable (which made me feel bad for the people who had to live around me…haha.)
Sometimes taking a couple days off is exactly what's needed to refresh and refuel. Or cutting back a little on the mileage too, which is what I had to do once the injuries came along…
Oh my gosh, yes. I usually do a long run on Sundays but I found myself torn when setting the alarm this past Saturday night- I felt like there was no way I could have another six-hours-of-sleep night and not feel exhausted! I decided it would be better to sleep in and it was really great- it really is so important to get enough sleep and unfortunately sometimes it seems to come down to sleep vs. exercise, especially in the summer when you have to run before it's unbearably hot!
Ah! Yes, definitely. Not lately, however, I've been really trying to pay attention to my body and what it needs. Example: um, eating 3 banana muffins at 9 PM–not something I would normally do, but, I was starving, and all I wanted was those banana muffins–I took that as a sign that my body needed some carbs and a little fat, etc. When I was younger however, I really overtrained–I did fitness competitions and literally would be a raging brat because I was so hungry and soooo tired from all the 5 AM wakes up and the two a day workouts–soooo not healthy! Physically or mentally! You live and you learn, right?
Take it easy and rest up!
great info on overtraining. I definitely pushed it too hard and paid the price; 1.5 days off work with a horrid headache. 4 days of rest later, lesson learned
I do have a tendency to over do it sometimes, but I am embracing rest days and naps more now than I used to. Now that I do that, everything seems to be balancing out and I'm not as tired anymore
[...] not the only one. It happens to all of us. Of all the mistakes triathletes make, this is probably the most common. [...]