Ugh, I'm Burned Out On My Training. Now What?!
By Coach Healthy McKirdy
You might know the feeling. Instead of being excited by your weekly training schedule, you’ve been feeling a little “meh” about it over the past few weeks instead. Maybe you’re actually dreading your scheduled workouts. Paces have become harder to hit, even on easy runs. You feel drained and exhausted all the time. You might be starting to feel some anxiety about your upcoming racing season because your heart just isn’t in it the way it used to be.
You look yourself in the mirror and admit a hard truth: you’re feeling burned out.
Burnout is an increasingly common phenomenon that many people experience due to the go-go-go nature of our society. Endurance athletes are even more susceptible because beyond normal day-to-day stress, we push our bodies to the limit in training. We intentionally ride the line, trying to find the boundaries of our fitness. Sometimes we go too far.
So now what?
There’s no reason to panic - there are a few logical steps you can take in order to find the root cause of, and resolve, a burnout scenario.
The first step is to rule out any physiological causes. You can take all the time off in the world, but if there’s an underlying physiological problem, time away from the sport won’t necessarily resolve it.
Get some bloodwork done, specifically an iron panel. Low iron can cause persistent feelings of fatigue that make activity unenjoyable and overly draining. Addressing a low iron situation can resolve the feelings of burnout.
Reevaluate life outside of training. Is there a situation at work or at home that is causing unusual stress? Our bodies are unable to differentiate between types of stress so a prolonged stressful event outside of your athletic life may very well be impacting your training. You may need to cut back your training load until the situation resolves.
Check in on your sleep habits. If you’re routinely getting 6 hours or less per night, lack of sleep may be contributing to or causing your feeling of burnout. Establish good sleep hygiene - try to stay on a consistent sleep schedule and keep electronics out of the bedroom. Try a sleep aid if you have difficulty falling or staying asleep - Prevail Full Spectrum CBD Oil right before bed is very effective for this!
If you’ve eliminated any possible physiological causes, then it’s likely you’re dealing with some mental burnout. This can be a bit trickier to resolve, but there are steps you can take to start figuring it out.
Connect with your ‘why’ - remember why you started this journey and why you chose to stick with it. Your ‘why’ should be your compass, the thing that navigates you through the highs and lows of sport. Taking some time to reflect on your ‘why’ and perhaps better define your ‘why’ can spark your motivation.
Reevaluate your training load. Too many hard workouts in a short span of time? Long runs or rides that are too long? Overall volume too high? Scaling back the intensity and volume - and even taking a few days off to recover and reset - can make a big difference. Don’t be afraid to take a step back. We need to give ourselves the grace to take some down time if it’s truly needed.
Switch things up! If you typically workout in the same environment, try something new. Find a new place to run or ride. Recruit some friends to come with you if you typically train solo. Hit a trail instead of the roads. Bring music with you. Changing up your routine can make things fun again and reignite your motivation.
Focus on recovery between workouts. Make sure you’re regularly using a foam roller, taking an ice bath, using Prevail Aid Station SALVation on those sore muscles. If you aren’t adequately recovering from a hard effort, it creates a domino effect - things start feeling harder than intended because you’re going into each subsequent workout with overly fatigued muscles. If you take care of your body in between hard efforts, it usually will take care of you.
It’s important to note that true burnout is a condition that persists for a long period of time. One or two days of feeling more sluggish than usual doesn’t mean you’re suffering from burnout. Two to three weeks of that feeling might mean that you are. Once you realize that you might be suffering from burnout, however, take action right away! Letting the issue compound - whether it’s physical, mental, or both - will only dig you further into a hole. The sooner you can be proactive about addressing what you’re experiencing, the sooner you can get back to your normal, happy, butt-kicking self.
About Heather McKirdy
Heather is an east-coast transplant to Flagstaff, AZ where she currently lives, runs, and plays in the mountains with her husband and two dogs. A running coach for McKirdy Trained, she spends most of her days highly invested in her athletes’ training. In her free time, she’s working towards her own goals of a 2:50 road marathon and eventually, tackling her based-in-no-reality fear of running for longer than 4 hours and taking on Comrades! You can learn more about her coaching programs at
https://mckirdytrained.com/coaches/
