With less than 60 days to go until the Mallorca 312 training my has stepped up another notch. I was feeling really good after a long weekend cycling in Mallorca, lots of climbing and sunshine, good for fitness and the soul! I’ve also been trying to lose a bit more weight in order to become a lean mean cycling machine. The combined effect of this, plus a full time job, ended up with me sat on the stairs crying about leggings!
So, I thought I would share some of my tell-tale signs of over-training, of course there are more scientific articles available, but this is my take on it, and what I’ve learned getting it a bit wrong
1. it can sneak up on you quickly
I was surprised how quickly I went from feeling like I’d found a bit of form, to crying. It was within days and the hardest bit to recognise was that cycling was the easiest part of my day, everything else felt like a chore, but cycling was still OK. I think I was expecting that to suffer.
I started off grumpy, snapping at every little thing at the start of the week and sleeping ALOT, but still I didn’t recognise what was going on…
2. make sure you eat enough
I’ve been working hard at losing weight since Christmas, with some good results, 5kg and still going, I would like to be 65kg for the Mallorca 312. However, I got a bit giddy with the weight loss, and stopped eating enough – I’ve got no middle ground with anything, that’s just who I am! But I didn’t recognise what was happening quick enough, and that was another contribution to sitting on the stairs crying.
3. having a rest isn’t a sign of failure
I’ve been so tied up with increasing my weekly mileage, that I downright forgot to make sure I was getting enough rest days! Rest is so important, it’s when our bodies heal and it’s also the time it makes us stronger. But I seem to forget this point somewhere along the line.
So it took me sitting on the stairs crying about not having any comfy clothes to realise what was happening. I’ve had a good few rest days and eating a few more calories but I’m feeling much more like myself again, and ready to get back on my bike…
