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Comment by nabla9 | Hacker News Reader

> Days like that tend to elevate my resting heart rate for up to a week afterwords.

Sounds like overtraining. If you overtrain, you are not exercising optimally and stop developing. You must increase the training volume gradually and take days off if the signs of overstraining appear.

Increasing training often requires increased rest. You can't keep busy as usual and train hard. Pro-athletes sit and rest on a couch a lot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overtraining#Signs_and_symptom...

>Elevated resting heart rate, a persistently high heart rate after adequate rest such as in the morning after sleep, can be an indicator of overtraining

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> and take days off if the signs of overstraining appear

Your training plan should include days off irrespective. And also easy "rest" weeks. When training you essentially do damage (wear and tear in the muscles etc.), and when resting after the body repairs things better than they were before. If you never rest properly, the body is fighting a losing battle and you'll never improve as much as you are trying to, if at all. This is why marathon training plans and similar tend to be in 4-ish week cycles with an easy week every cycle and explicit rest days even in the hardest of weeks. Even ultra-marathon training where you might have back-to-back long runs will have rest days each week and whole rest weeks within the program.

Caveat: I'm not expert so consider my thoughts anecdotal. Though I'm fairly confident I'm not talking complete rubbish as I've run a few road marathons (best time so far is just shy of 4 hours, I'm not sure I'll try for any faster than that), plenty of road halfs, a number of trail runs of 13 miles or more, one trail "ultra" (30-ana-bit miles so only 4 above base marathon distance, but bugger me there were hills/steps/mud/other!), and a long weekend trail challenge (69 miles over four days), and I'm training for another trail marathon (~28.5 miles this one) next month and another trail challenge weekend (100+ miles over four days this time) later in the year.

Your toughs more or less match everything what I have read and practiced.

I typically "train" every day, meaning I run six days a week and ride my bike on the seventh. I do, however, have rest days; it's just that my rest days are shorter distances at a lower heart rate. My Tuesdays and Thursdays are rest days, so I run 8.9 miles @ 130 beats-per-minute heart rate.

I absolutely, do not recommend my training plan for others; it's taken me more than ten years to get where I am, but as an example of what can be done (at least with my body), you can see how I recently trained for the Bataan Memorial Death March[0] and also see a subset of my official ultra results at UltraSignup[1] as well as my self-reported marathon results at Marathon Maniacs[2].

FWIW, I think my sleep schedule and diet have contributed significantly to the gains I've made over the years, but I'm also well aware of survivor bias. Neither of my parents were athletic though and I absolutely hated running as a kid (although I really enjoyed ultimate frisbee in high school).

[0] https://github.com/ctm/Bataan-Memorial-Death-March [1] https://ultrasignup.com/results_participant.aspx?fname=Cliff... [2] https://www.marathonmaniacsdb.com/Maniacs/MyRaces?ManiacId=4...

I suspect that ultra endurance is somewhat different from the other sports. It seems reasonable that conditioning requires loading mileage like crazy, even compared to marathon or triathlon. Maybe microcycles (1 week) are unnecessary.

Modern preiodization was scientifically discovered by Russians in the 60s and it seems to work in every sport when correctly applied. Do you have have mesocycles (2-5 weeks) or macrocycles (6-12 month) in your training plans?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sports_periodization

"Overreaching" might be a better word. Overtraining would be doing that kind of workout every week instead of every few months.

But yes, I'm probably making mistakes. I've never trained seriously until very recently. I reached my current level of fitness more or less by accident with a few thousand miles of hiking.

Avoiding overtraining is one reason to train with good heart rate monitor. In some days you must run much slower than other days because of stress, lack of sleep and rest. When you hit your upper limits, it's a sing to slow down.

Suddenly reduced HRV is another sign of overtrtraining. Good heart rate monitors (some Polar models with a strap) can do Orthostatic Test and give even more accurate information than heart rate.

https://www.polar.com/blog/heart-rate-variability-and-orthos...

Mountains, perhaps thanks to summit fever, really seduces people into overreaching, and cover up the clues at the same time. "I got to the summit, so it's all good!" you think.

I really can't recommend "Training For the New Alpinism" enough. It really disabused me of that notion, and after a year or two of conscientious work I can hike the same trails with a smile & easy breathing, faster than I once could dripping sweat & suffering.

A sport heart rate monitor is also extremely valuable.

Heh, I've actually been doing TFNA for about two months now. Just finished the "transition period."

If you're having these days where your heart rate is elevated for weeks after, during your transition period, you either started off with way too much work or you're not tracking your work honestly. In just a month or two during the base period you will wind up doing more than double what you're doing right now, so it's very important that what you're doing right now is really quite easy to sustain. Also, heart rate zones! Make sure you are following them!

About once a month I take a weekend to go to my absolute physical limits, and then take a half week or so of rest. It's probably not healthy, and it's certainly not good training, but it sure is fun. Not many people get to say they've seen the enchantments or deep into the goat rocks wilderness in the dead of winter.

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