overtraining?

good question...i often wondered the same thing.

turns out it is next to impossible to "over train" to the true meaning of the word.  you would seriously have to try to do it and try hard.

really, you just need to listen to your body, if your tired, sleep.  if you are hurting bad/sick, take a day off. 

an athlete who is truly over trained would need months to recover.

also, try not to confuse slowly building up endurance and over training.  in other words, going from 10 miles per week to 30 miles per week running will likely result in getting injured, not being over trained.

Edited by cusetri 2009-07-31 7:53 PM

Agree w/ Cuse.  Everything I've heard is that most AGs don't overtrain.  IMO the details matter a ton.  Sleep lots, eat super healthy, stretch, etc.  They are small things that are so easy to blow off (I never stretch and it is so stupid!!), yet can make a huge difference in how we feel.

Hard to give you insight on your training specifically since you don't use the logs. 

I rely pretty heavily on my heart rate monitor.

I make sure my resting heart rate is normal and my heart rate for a given speed while running makes sense.

The only time I overtrained, I saw my heart rate way above normal for a given running speed.

The speed I recover (come back to normal heart rate) is also something I watch.

I find it harder to get consistent heart rates when cycling. I find my running rates are the most representative of the effort I am putting out and how tired I am.

Listen to your body! Have your training scheduled to give yourself some push to continuously improve. If you can do more, great. That also gives you the ability to cut back some and still stick to your training without feeling like you arent doing enough. Good Luck.