Two months previous to the 24hr race I was diagnosed with overtraining syndrome and was told to take a week off from training and during that week forget about the Athletic Diet and just eat what I want and rest. Well thats exactly what i've done over the last two weeks. My 'Athletic' diet has gone out the window and I've used the opportunity as I transition from one event to preparing for the next event to do the things I haven't done for a while. I ate lots of chocolate, had my chinese takeaway, had a few hangovers and now it's time to start training again. As mentioned previously the Dublin Marathon marks the end of my year so my 24hr race was timed perfectly as there was only a week between the two races.
One of my training principles is always take a step back before going forward and this simply means not continuing on from where you left off but starting back at the beginning. If you don't have a start and finish point there could be a tendency to just continue training and not allow your body to rest / recover and adapt to the recent stresses caused by training and racing.
The intensity will be reduced and i'll start off with a low volume of training (reduced mileage) which will gradually be increased over the coming weeks. Between now and Christmas i'll focus on maintaining a decent level of fitness and work on my leg strength with the objective being to get myself ready to do some serious training knowing that I can be race ready for any distance in as little as 4 weeks but preferrably a bit longer.
John
ReplyDeleteYou mention your "Athletic" diet in the post above? What does this consist of? Is it simply a high carb diet or are there things you cut down on or don't eat also?
C.
Hi Christy, High carb and low fat! I aim to eat 500+ grams of carbs per day. It takes a bit of effort to do it right and have found that keeping a food diary helps. Putting the effort into getting the carb intake right usually means my fat intake is low and I steer clear of the obvious fat traps such as chocolate / cakes / biscuits. All in all my diet is what I'd call normal but I'd snack on high carb foods such as raisins / bagels / pancakes etc and these are also the foods I use during my Ultras.
ReplyDeleteJ