The training plan says yes but the body says no? Get to know the warning signs that you’re close to burnout and follow your body’s signals by cutting back

If you’re tired, injury-prone and losing form, you could be doing too much

Lucy Waterlow

Weall know running is Words amazing. It can keep us happy and healthy, and there is nothing like the buzz of achievement when setting a new PB or crossing a finish line. But sometimes you can have too much of a good thing. If you keep pushing yourself harder and harder in the pursuit of your goals, and never give your body enough time to recover, you could fall into the danger zone of over-training.

Over-training is when you stress your body too much through exercise. This could be by regularly doing high mileage, doing all your runs at a quick pace or doing multiple endurance races a year without having a break in-between.

Over-training is something coach Jordan Foster (Insta @__jordanfoster) experienced when she was chasing faster and faster times. She achieved some amazing PBs, including a sub-three hour marathon, but then found her health deteriorated and her performance stagnated.

“Back in 2018, I suffered burnout after running my sub-three marathon. What I should have done is taken the time to rest and recover afterwards, but I went straight back into training. I was in the mindset that I didn’t want to lose my fitness,” she recalls.

“It worked for a couple of months but then my training majorly plateaued. I felt constantly exhausted and lost the love of running. I ended up missing my target for my next goal race by quite a lot. It made me realise I couldn’t carry on like that if I wanted to run well and enjoy it.”

Warning signs