Confessions Of An Overtrained Runner Vol. 2

 

This human body never stops amazing me! When I ran my first #halfmarathon in 2009, I wasn't sure I would ever be able to run full marathon. The I ran it in 2011 and I strived for more. I wanted to be better and better and to run faster, I ran my PB around 3:12 in the spring of 2014 and then I got injured and I never forgave myself for not running that sub 3 in the autumn of 2014. I kept pushing, I wanted to slim down to a weight that is totally unnatural for my body while training crazy hard. And I spiraled down into serious overtraining by the autumn of 2015. I gained lot of weight, i lost lot of my fitness, but finally I understood it was necessary in order to become healthy again. 

Luckily, in the middle of the worst moments I met Babeta and #adventaci and I realized one can enjoy running without PBs on every race... last year I discovered the magic of multisport events. I worked hard on my swim and bike, got much better at inline skating as I was getting ready for Gigathlon Czech Republic. I also finished my first half ironman. But deep down I knew this still wasn't me even though I had a blast and lot of fun on my way. Finally, this autumn we signed up for the Two Oceans Marathon - first ultra (56 km) of my life. But first I took November Off, because in December there is the Advent Running challenge and we run every day. I ran on Wednesday morning only, did some yoga and swimming, but only as often as I felt to. 

 

Babeta who was supposed to run with us got pregnant, so while she wanted to keep on running, it was sure she was not running an ultra at the end of second trimester... luckily there was also Ivana who signed up, so there were two of us and just like that another friendship was born. We covered countless km running and cross country skiing together with few bottles of bubbly. 

And sometime before Christmas my body finally realized that while there is quite some training plan, I am not starving it any more and the layers that stuck with me through the Gigathlon and 70.3 Ironman training finally started to peel off. Read carefully: I worked my ass off and it took one and half year for my body to start working "normally" again!!! 

Please my dear friends, be careful, the edge between your best performance and serious overtraining crazy narrow. We just discussed it this Friday while having an opulent brunch to celebrate Babeta's birthday 😍 I could blame my coach from that time. But I actually never told him that I was bursting into tears spontaneously during lot of my hard trainings for at least two months... And I think that wasn't about being honest to him, mainly I wasn't honest to myself. And you cannot blame anyone else for that.

 

I actually started writing this post on my instagram as comment on photo from Prague Marathon yesterday. I "only" ran a half marathon as a relay with my new friend and business partner Ivana. But I was seriously amazed what human body can do. On Saturday I raced at Krusnoman Duathlon that is called to be the hardest duathlon in Europe with 5 km run, 82 km bike and 15 km run with 2 200 m of elevation (the run is actually up and down a ski slope!). 6 hours of racing on Saturday and I didn't know what to expect from half marathon on Sunday. Prague Marathon has great atmosphere and I have lot of friends running it and / or cheering along the way. I started rather conservatively watching my heart rate. I had a blast, I worked quite hard in the second half and I ran 1:47:42 which is 1 s faster than in February in Barcelona where I was getting ready just for the half without any crazy events the day before. While I'm still far behind my personal best, I don't care. I feel stronger, I can and enjoy running up the hills and stairs and I'm having fun along the way. I shall see where this takes me. But it seems I really have some Diesel engine inside, so maybe you will see me in more longer events. I love my body for what it is capable of doing and I'm glad I have learnt another lesson. 

Congratulations to everyone running Prague Marathon (or any race) this weekend!