My Overtraining Story
Its early Sunday morning as I sit here, drink my coffee and cerebrate about this past week… Never in my whole life did I ever think that I would experience overtraining and the repercussions of it. I have always pictured myself as this indestructible athlete with an insane amount of energy to always burn. When I reflect on overtraining I believe I have come close to crossing the line before. This week I officially went overboard. Here is my story…
Sunday January 17th 2021
I don’t think I’ve ever surfed locally three times in one week. This day was AWESOME! I met up with my friend Lucas at Lake Erie to surf and we stayed in the water for two hours. It was the best session I have had on my new surf board yet! I caught three solid waves, and Dave Johnson was even there to take pictures! Thanks for braving the cold Dave! I remember getting back into my car, changing out of my wetsuit and cranking the heat up drastically. As I drove away from the beach, I pulled my visor down, looked in the mirror and noticed my extra pale skin, and purple lips. I thought to myself “wow, I didn’t think I felt that cold, but my face says otherwise!”. I have been surfing the Great Lakes here in Canada for three years now, and I always just assumed that pale skin and purple lips were normal due to our frigid waters. Little did I know, my body was burning out and my skin was showing it.
Photo captured by Dave Johnson @davejmedia
Monday January 18th 2021
I woke up at 7:00am, drank my coffee, ate my fav pre-workout snack and headed over to my athletic therapists place. The plan was to get treatment and then workout afterwards. The treatment session ended up being over an hour, and ended with “no strength training today, just stick to cardio for this week”. At first I was upset because I wanted to workout with some heavy weight. About ten minutes later, as I got in my car and drove home I actually sighed in relief and thought to myself “okay you’re allowed to take it easy today”. I went home and hopped on the spin bike for 75 minutes. I felt tired, but okay.
Tuesday January 19th 2021
No strength was on the agenda today, just 80 minutes of cardio at level 2 heart rate. I hopped back on the bike again, and I struggled immensely. The first ten minutes I told myself to push through the pain because I am usually uncomfortable during the first part of my workout and then settle in. But my body wasn’t settling. My breath was staying short, and I felt dizzy. After twenty five minutes I felt extreme nausea and had to get off the bike. I sucked back all of the water I had and ran into my bedroom to sit on my floor and control my breathing. Nice long deep breaths. It took me another ten minutes to calm my body down. I ended up using some breathing techniques taught by Just Add Water Yoga to finally relax my body. I was now on my floor wanting to cry and scream at the frustration I had inside me for not being able to complete my workout.
Real time frustration in this photo…
Wednesday January 20th 2021
It was back to my athletic therapists to receive more treatment. I had told Steven what happened the day before and his response was “alright, you’re taking the rest of the week off. Thats six full days to relax and do nothing. You are actually going to be a couch potato”. Rather than being frustrated as I was the day before, I decided to tell myself “no, you are actually being TOLD not to do anything. No if’s, ands, or butts. Just take it easy”. For the rest of the day I only did things that made myself feel better. I got a mocha, listened to new albums I had put aside for a while, returned to my adult colouring books and even watched TV!
Just a sample of my colouring :)
Thursday January 21st 2021
Not my typical day, but it was a simple day. I slept in, had a quick appointment, went for a walk in my favourite conservation area with my dog Luna, worked on my thesis for a bit and watched more TV. I felt okay doing all of these things, but was already starting to miss my high intensity activities. I thought to myself “Is this healthy? Missing activities and training so much? I think I need to talk to someone about this”.
Friday January 22nd 2021
I had gone back to Steven’s for my last treatment of the week which consisted of fascial stretching. As I laid there and took deep breaths in, I felt a wave of relaxation flow over me. I was present and nothing else mattered. Not what my future was going to look like, how I was going to get back into training, or what I was going to do later on that day. I just laid there, focused on Steven’s movements and let my body be present. When I went back home I completed more tasks for school, went for a walk with Luna, and coloured some more. Later on that same day I also reached out to a few friends to talk about my feelings of frustration and uncertainty about my sport and training, and wow did that ever feel good.
At 4pm I spoke with a sports psychologist for the first time to talk about my feelings. Not only did this session secure what my friends were telling me, but this conversation also added some tools to my mental tool kit in order to control my feelings of frustration and anxiety around my sport. I actually highly recommend this to any athlete at ANY level if you are feeling upset around your sport and/or training.
Going for a walk helps me find peace and relax :)
The intended purpose of sharing this story with you, whether you are a pro or semi-pro athlete, weekend warrior, educator, coach, etc. is to hopefully learn something from my experience. Even if you take away one thing that may resonate with you, then I will be overjoyed. I came into the sport of SUP later in life, and have been very fortunate that my talent has gotten me so far. I always felt that because of this, that I needed to train harder in order to achieve the athletic goals that I have in mind. But harder does not always mean smarter. Finding that balance has just become another part of my athletic career and I am proud to recognize that. I am proud to recognize (with the help of those around me - thanks Steven and my fam jam) when my body is weak, and when to take a step back, because that action in itself is STRONG.