Why Slower as Season Progresses?

I just peeked at your logs, it appears your hatred of rest days is worse than mine.  Our bodies do need the rest days for recovery.  A lack of consistent rest days is going to make you go slower.  Training too hard all the time is going to make you slower.  The body needs recovery (less strenuous) workouts as well as harder workouts...it also needs days off that are not physically taxing with heavy yard work or other major chores/stresses on it. 

Are you following a training plan?

Having two days off before a race, in my opinion, is not a good idea.  What works for me is a day off two days out then the day before I just do some very light training just to keep the legs working.

Thanks Peeps... good stuff and good to know I'm not alone.

And um, not really sure about doing a 1/2 to improve my oly times there jmwebs! LOL (can you just see it now? running coming in with a miner type hat on - ya know with a light on top. finish time 9:56:27)

Taking rest days or not has little to do with your slow times. Just because some coach made famous the myth that everyone needs a weekly day off doesn't make it right

I make a training plan at the beginning of the year that has at least one rest day per week.   I then use my resting heart rate (RHR) to determine if I need additional days off or just easy days.  First thing every morning, before you get out of bed, take your pulse for one minute.  While you are well rested from training get your average RHR.  If one morning I wake up and my RHR has jumped from 51 to 61, I make myself take a rest day.  I am either overtrained or getting sick.  If my RHR has only jumped 5 bpm, I will take an easy day or a rest day.  My times improved after I started this technique.

 Another thing I did that improved my time was to find my Maximum Aerobic Function (MAF).  The local bike club got together and we all determined our maximum heart rate and anaerobic threshold (AT).  My MAF is 150 or 85% of my maximum. I would normally do my tempo runs at my AT, which is 162 or 91% of my max.  150 bpm's felt painfully slow, but my times started getting better.   Amazingly by taking more rest days and running slower, my times got much faster.

 I am not an expert by any means, but this worked for me.

And regarding MAF, MHR and AT? Since you are new here it will help if you do a search about those topics. oh and welcome

x2.  If I had to guess from looking at your logs (and it is more or less guessing), you need to give yourself a chance to experience the gains that come from recovery after stressing your body.  This doesn't mean taking one day off here and there, but building periods of lower volume into your schedule ('periodization').  This can be psychologically hard to do -- think of it as yet another challenge! 

I know guys in their 50s who haven't changed their training regime for well over a decade -- week in and week out they do the same d--- thing, with no reduced-volume weeks.  They are really fit.  They can run a marathon then go home and paint the house.  But they never get any faster.

Everybody is different.  Your slower times could be the result of overtraining, undertraining, poor nutrition, insufficient sleep, too much life/work/family stress, or phychological (depression?).  You need to figure out what your situation is by listening to your body and possibly a little experimenting.

The second year I swam in high school, my times improved throughout the first half of the season, but then began getting slower.  By chance, I learned through a phys ed teacher that I was burning several thousand calories during long training sessions twice a day, but had not increased the quantity or quality of my diet.  I started buying 2 school lunches everyday, and eating more and heathier foods, and my times quickly improved again.

Fastforward 20 years, and now I try to pay a lot of attention to how I feel and what's going on around me to affect my athletic performance, and can normally make any necessary adjustments to get back on track.

I was afraid I'd hear this. I will have to learn more about age/recovery/training and athletic gains. Maybe I can cross train on 'days of rest'...or I hope so.