COACH’S CORNER – TOO MUCH, TOO FAST, TOO SOON

COACH’S CORNER – TOO MUCH, TOO FAST, TOO SOON

Kate Dzienis • February 28, 2019

Coach’s Corner is a feature for AURA members, where qualified trained professionals provide you with advice and tips on improving and enhancing your ultra running performance.

Contributed by Brendan Davies, UP Coaching Head Coach & 2018 Captain of the Australian 100k World Team.


UP Coaching specialises in coaching ultra runners across road and trail. Davies’ team of coaches include Australian ultra running representatives Kellie Emmerson, Kelly-ann Varey, Mick Keyte, David Kennedy, Jonathan Worswick and Jodie Oborne. UP Coaching has provided coaching to many prominent Australian ultra runners including Kellie Emmerson, Larissa Tichon, Lou Clifton, Robyn Bruins, Andrew Hough, Steph Auston, Tia Jones and Corrina Black.  

What is overtraining?
Overtraining happens when the intensity and/or the frequency of your training exceeds your body’s ability to recover from the training load.

It can seriously affect you mentally, physically and emotionally.

When it comes to overtraining, there are different levels:

  1. Acute overtraining – this is a result of trying to run too intensely, too many days in a row without proper recovery. Acute, or short term, overtraining will typically manifest itself as soreness or worse yet injury, but this type of fatigue can usually be addressed with a brief rest period.
  2. Chronic overtraining – this definitely tends to come on much more gradually over weeks and months. Chronic fatigue, attributed to overtraining for a long period of time because of its gradual and systematic nature, can really take you down and put you out for a significant period of time.

First signs of chronic overtraining:

  • Generalised fatigue
  • Weight loss and loss of appetite
  • Diarrhoea
  • Restless sleep and early morning awakenings
  • Sexual disinterest
  • Acute exhaustion marked by breathlessness
  • Colds or flus
  • Higher perceived effort for the same sessions
  • Increased resting heart rate
  • Underperforming in ‘sweetspot’ racing
  • Recurrent headaches
  • Loss of desire and motivation to train


Preventing overtraining:

  1. Don’t race too frequently.Running races puts a lot of stress on your body. Without taking time to recover from frequent racing, and devoting time to train in a periodised fashion towards them, your performances will plateau. Since racing should be 100% maximum effort, you’ll quickly peak your current fitness and have trouble running significantly faster. I recommend no more than 1-2 races per month, depending on race goals and distances.
  2. Sleep as much as you need.This is a no-brainer. Getting fitter and fresher happens when you sleep and recover because that’s when your body adapts and super-compensates from your training. Do yourself an easy favour and make sure you get at least 7-8 hours of sleep every night.
  3. Eat real food in the right quantities.Your diet provides the fuel and nutrients you need to train and it helps your body recover from the workouts and long runs that you’re doing on a weekly basis.
  4. When training, don’t focus too much on one thing.Some runners get convinced they need to do long runs every other day or run interval workouts three times every week. You’re going to get over-trained if you put too much emphasis on any one type of training. Training should be varied: there are staples, like easy distance runs, and then runs like long runs, interval workouts, or hill sprints where you only need a bit. Variety is important, so don’t get stuck doing too much of one thing for too long.
  5. Recovery runs should enhance recovery (freshness), not fitness.Don’t fall into the trap of trying to “get a workout” from a recovery run. That’s not the point of these easy runs and if you try to run too far or too fast, you’re potentially negating the positive training affects from the harder workouts. Easy runs allow the quality sessions to shine!


Know the purpose of every run and stick to your plan. Most runners run too fast on their easy days and too slow on their hard days. Strike a balance and know when to push the pace and when to take it easy.

Breaking the habits of overtraining

For some readers, particularly the case with many ultrarunners who tend to be on the slightly obsessive and compulsive side naturally, prevention is no longer an option and years of overtraining have ingrained unhealthy training patterns that have led to bouts of chronic overtraining. So how do you break the habits and form new ones which will help you avoid doing the same unhealthy patterns over and over?

  1. Try halving your usual routine for a month.Half your usual volume and frequency of training and see if energy levels and motivation improves. Focus on other aspects of your training instead like flexibility, strength, etc.
  2. Find some other ways to deal with life.Unfortunately far too many runners, particularly ultrarunners, use running as (and often the only) coping mechanism for the myriad of issues life naturally presents. While running can be a great therapeutic tool, it can’t be the only tool you have. Commitment to a healthy habit is one thing, dependence is another thing altogether.
  3. Utilise a coach.Even if you feel you don’t need a coach for any other purpose than to keep you accountable to a safer, sounder training program, then that is as good a reason to have a coach as any! Personally, I can vouch from my own athletes who I coach, there is a large percentage of them who know the nuts and bolts of running training pretty much as well as I do, but one of the major reasons for utilising me is for that level of both expertise and accountability when it comes to training load, recovery and periodising towards the races that matter and to avoid the overtraining traps!


I hope this article has helped you assess your training and given you some thoughts on overtraining. ‘Listening to your body’ is a key component of the success of runners both in performance, durability and longevity. Don’t ignore the early signs as prevention is of course the best treatment. Like all things though, some of us occasionally will push the envelop in search of our bodies limitations, and bad patterns may develop, some over many years. In this case, I highly recommend seeking the advice of experts.

Brendan Davies, Head Coach
Up Coaching

Get in touch with Brendan Davies and his team at UP Coaching by clicking on the logo above, emailing him at brendan@upcoaching.com.au or visiting Instagram or Facebook.

By Kate Dzienis February 19, 2025
The latest in race results, covering Cradle Mountain Run, City Run, Oscars 100 Hut 2 Hut and Yaberoo Trail Ultra.
By Alexis Oosterhoff January 30, 2025
Results for the 2024 AUTRA Points Competition have been finalised, and are available on our Points Competition page. Full details of the top 10 (as shared on Facebook during January) are detailed below, and results for all participating AUTRA members can be found in the documents at the above link. It was a real battle throughout the year between our top two finishers, Phil Gore & Kevin "BK" Matthews, with both giving it their it their all at events, and through contributions to the community - volunteering at multiple events, and submitting articles to our monthly newsletter, Ultramag. They finished within 2km of total distance for the year (Phil on 1203.087km, and Kevin on 1205.510km), and it was only Phil's final volunteering effort on 6 Inch Trail Marathon in December that gave him the that very narrow victory. As you'd be aware from previous communications, this marks the end of the Points Competition. With trail running (of all distances) now incorporated into AU T RA's constitution, and after careful consideration of the costs of the competition payouts in it's current form, the committee felt it was time for it's retirement. This marks my seventh and final year of delivering the points competition to membership (2018-2024), after taking on the role from Cheryl Symons. It has brought me great joy in doing so, and I feel like I've had an opportunity to get to know so many of our members through seeing their race (and volunteering) performances over the years! I'm continuing in my role as the AUS/NZL statistician for DUV (from whom we shared the data for the points comp), and you can expect to continue to find your ultra-race result on their site. 1st Place - Phil Gore (WA) - 86 points Phil's achievements this year have included a massive 265.653km (and 2nd place) at the IAU 24h Asia & Oceania Championships, wins at the Red Dirt Backyard Ultra (33 laps), the Australian leg of Big Dog's Backyard World Team Championship (96 laps), and the Soochow/Taipei 24h Ultramarathon (270.826km). He also knocked out an easy (!) 72km at the Light Horse Ultra 24h in between supporting his amazing wife Gemma. Those two 24h wins netted Phil new Oceania 24h Open Male records, IAU Level 1 qualifiers, and pushed him to the top of Australia's 24h trophy board (with only the great Yiannis Kouros having run further). Phil topped-up his points by contributing one article to Ultramag, worked as an Event Director at Herdy's Frontyard Ultra, and volunteered at a further five events through the year. He finished on 86 points. 2nd Place - Kevin Matthews (WA) - 84 points Finishing in 2nd place in the AUTRA 2024 Points Competition is WA's Kevin Matthews. He monstered his way through the year with finishes at Australia Day Ultra 100km, Delirious WEST 200mi, 24 laps at Herdy's Frontyard Ultra, 190km at Light Horse Ultra 24h, 23 laps at Birdy's Backyard Ultra, and also completed Feral Pig 100 miler, Sandman 50km and Six Inch 47km. And to top things off, he contributed five articles to Ultramag, and volunteered at five events. BK ran 1205km in Ultramarathon races this year, all of them AUTRA-listed, and surpassed 100 marathon finishes (including 51 Ultramarathons!) Kevin finished the year on 84 points, a massive 34 points ahead of our 3rd place finisher Sue Robertson. 3rd Place - Sue Robertson (WA) - 50 points Finishing in 3rd place in the AUTRA 2024 Points Competition is WA's Sue Robertson. Sue completed the Ultra Series 100 miler trilogy of Delirious WEST, Irrational SOUTH and Unreasonable EAST, and rounded out her year with the Sandman 50km and Six Inch 47km races. She received 30 points from the racing at AUTRA-listed events, and was awarded a further 20 points by volunteering across eight events and contributing two articles to Ultramag, for a total of 50 points for the year. Thank you Sue! 4th Place - Margie Hadley (WA) - 47 points Finishing in 4th place in the AUTRA 2024 Points Competition is WA's Margie Hadley . She was the top-female finisher at both the No Time to Die Frontyard Ultra & Wild Dog Backyard Ultra, 2nd at Birdy's Backyard Ultra, ran 182km at the Australian 24h Track Invitational and placed 3rd at Coast to Kosci. Margie received 47 points in the competition 5th Place - Melissa Robertson (NSW) - 44 points Finishing in 5th place in the AUTRA 2024 Points Competition is NSW's Melissa Robertson. Melissa took out 1st place at Irrational SOUTH 200 miler, 2nd place at Lakes Trail Festival 100km, 1st place at Hume & Hovell 100 miler, 3rd place at Rumble in the Jungle and 6th place at Ultra-Trail Kosciuszko 100 miler! She also volunteered at the GNW 50km event, receiving 44 points in the competition! 6th Place - Aaron Young (WA) - 42 points Finishing in 6th place in the AUTRA 2024 Points Competition is WA's Aaron Young . Aaron finished in 1st place at each of the Ultra Series "Triple Crown" of 200 milers (Delirious WEST, Irrational SOUTH and Unreasonable EAST), 55 laps at Big Dog's Backyard World Team Championship, and rounded his year out with Feral Pig 100 miler. Aaron receives 42 points, just nudging ahead of Maree Connor (who also finished on 42 points) on a count-back 7th Place - Maree Connor (NSW) - 42 points Finishing in 7th place in the AUTRA 2024 Points Competition is NSW's Maree Connor. Maree had an outstanding year, achieving 2nd place with 221km (and an IAU Level 1 qualifier) at the IAU 24th Asian and Oceania Championships, 1st place at the Lakes Trail Festival 100km, 1st place with 67km at the Southern Sydney 6h race, and 1st place with 116km at the Narrabeen Allnighter 12h. Maree also competed at Spartathlon race this year (for which she contributed an article to the September Ultramag on her experience), receiving 42 points in the competition. 8th Place - Darren Linney (SA) - 41 points Finishing in 8th place in the AUTRA 2024 Points Competition is SA's Darren Linney . Darren completed 34 laps at No Time to Die BYU, 199km at the Adelaide 24h race, and 814km at the Australian 6 Day race, for a total of 1241km raced and 41 points . 9th Place - Tristan Cameron (WA) - 40 points Finishing in 9th place in the AUTRA 2024 Points Competition is WA's Tristan Cameron. Tristan completed the Ultra Series Triple Crown of 200 mile races (Delirious WEST, Irrational SOUTH and Unreasonable EAST), along with Feral Pig 100 miler, for a total of 1154km raced and 40 points. 10th Place - Jen Millum (WA) - 39 points Finishing in 10th place in the AUTRA 2024 Points Competition is WA's Jen Millum . Jen finished 1st at all three of the Ultra Series Trilogy of 100 milers (Delirious WEST, Irrational SOUTH and Unreasonable EAST), and was 2nd female with 35 laps at the Wild Dog Backyard Ultra. With a volunteer stint at the Yaberoo Trail Ultra, Jen finished the year with 39 points in the competition.  To view the complete list of members who secured points in 2024 click here and then follow through to Points Summary under the 2024 tab. All winners have already been contacted, with cash prizes distributed for 1st - 7th places, and AUTRA Store vouchers sent for 8th, 9th & 10th.
January 30, 2025
Steve Manning talks strategies for reducing trail running falls risk .
January 30, 2025
Zac Harris is here to explain and encourage the use of the training tool, Rate of Perceived Exertion, or RPE.
January 30, 2025
If you've ever run downhill, only to try to continue at the bottom but your legs feel like jelly, then you may need to practice the art of it a little bit more!
LOAD MORE

share this

IN OTHER NEWS

By Kate Dzienis February 19, 2025
The latest in race results, covering Cradle Mountain Run, City Run, Oscars 100 Hut 2 Hut and Yaberoo Trail Ultra.
By Alexis Oosterhoff January 30, 2025
Results for the 2024 AUTRA Points Competition have been finalised, and are available on our Points Competition page. Full details of the top 10 (as shared on Facebook during January) are detailed below, and results for all participating AUTRA members can be found in the documents at the above link. It was a real battle throughout the year between our top two finishers, Phil Gore & Kevin "BK" Matthews, with both giving it their it their all at events, and through contributions to the community - volunteering at multiple events, and submitting articles to our monthly newsletter, Ultramag. They finished within 2km of total distance for the year (Phil on 1203.087km, and Kevin on 1205.510km), and it was only Phil's final volunteering effort on 6 Inch Trail Marathon in December that gave him the that very narrow victory. As you'd be aware from previous communications, this marks the end of the Points Competition. With trail running (of all distances) now incorporated into AU T RA's constitution, and after careful consideration of the costs of the competition payouts in it's current form, the committee felt it was time for it's retirement. This marks my seventh and final year of delivering the points competition to membership (2018-2024), after taking on the role from Cheryl Symons. It has brought me great joy in doing so, and I feel like I've had an opportunity to get to know so many of our members through seeing their race (and volunteering) performances over the years! I'm continuing in my role as the AUS/NZL statistician for DUV (from whom we shared the data for the points comp), and you can expect to continue to find your ultra-race result on their site. 1st Place - Phil Gore (WA) - 86 points Phil's achievements this year have included a massive 265.653km (and 2nd place) at the IAU 24h Asia & Oceania Championships, wins at the Red Dirt Backyard Ultra (33 laps), the Australian leg of Big Dog's Backyard World Team Championship (96 laps), and the Soochow/Taipei 24h Ultramarathon (270.826km). He also knocked out an easy (!) 72km at the Light Horse Ultra 24h in between supporting his amazing wife Gemma. Those two 24h wins netted Phil new Oceania 24h Open Male records, IAU Level 1 qualifiers, and pushed him to the top of Australia's 24h trophy board (with only the great Yiannis Kouros having run further). Phil topped-up his points by contributing one article to Ultramag, worked as an Event Director at Herdy's Frontyard Ultra, and volunteered at a further five events through the year. He finished on 86 points. 2nd Place - Kevin Matthews (WA) - 84 points Finishing in 2nd place in the AUTRA 2024 Points Competition is WA's Kevin Matthews. He monstered his way through the year with finishes at Australia Day Ultra 100km, Delirious WEST 200mi, 24 laps at Herdy's Frontyard Ultra, 190km at Light Horse Ultra 24h, 23 laps at Birdy's Backyard Ultra, and also completed Feral Pig 100 miler, Sandman 50km and Six Inch 47km. And to top things off, he contributed five articles to Ultramag, and volunteered at five events. BK ran 1205km in Ultramarathon races this year, all of them AUTRA-listed, and surpassed 100 marathon finishes (including 51 Ultramarathons!) Kevin finished the year on 84 points, a massive 34 points ahead of our 3rd place finisher Sue Robertson. 3rd Place - Sue Robertson (WA) - 50 points Finishing in 3rd place in the AUTRA 2024 Points Competition is WA's Sue Robertson. Sue completed the Ultra Series 100 miler trilogy of Delirious WEST, Irrational SOUTH and Unreasonable EAST, and rounded out her year with the Sandman 50km and Six Inch 47km races. She received 30 points from the racing at AUTRA-listed events, and was awarded a further 20 points by volunteering across eight events and contributing two articles to Ultramag, for a total of 50 points for the year. Thank you Sue! 4th Place - Margie Hadley (WA) - 47 points Finishing in 4th place in the AUTRA 2024 Points Competition is WA's Margie Hadley . She was the top-female finisher at both the No Time to Die Frontyard Ultra & Wild Dog Backyard Ultra, 2nd at Birdy's Backyard Ultra, ran 182km at the Australian 24h Track Invitational and placed 3rd at Coast to Kosci. Margie received 47 points in the competition 5th Place - Melissa Robertson (NSW) - 44 points Finishing in 5th place in the AUTRA 2024 Points Competition is NSW's Melissa Robertson. Melissa took out 1st place at Irrational SOUTH 200 miler, 2nd place at Lakes Trail Festival 100km, 1st place at Hume & Hovell 100 miler, 3rd place at Rumble in the Jungle and 6th place at Ultra-Trail Kosciuszko 100 miler! She also volunteered at the GNW 50km event, receiving 44 points in the competition! 6th Place - Aaron Young (WA) - 42 points Finishing in 6th place in the AUTRA 2024 Points Competition is WA's Aaron Young . Aaron finished in 1st place at each of the Ultra Series "Triple Crown" of 200 milers (Delirious WEST, Irrational SOUTH and Unreasonable EAST), 55 laps at Big Dog's Backyard World Team Championship, and rounded his year out with Feral Pig 100 miler. Aaron receives 42 points, just nudging ahead of Maree Connor (who also finished on 42 points) on a count-back 7th Place - Maree Connor (NSW) - 42 points Finishing in 7th place in the AUTRA 2024 Points Competition is NSW's Maree Connor. Maree had an outstanding year, achieving 2nd place with 221km (and an IAU Level 1 qualifier) at the IAU 24th Asian and Oceania Championships, 1st place at the Lakes Trail Festival 100km, 1st place with 67km at the Southern Sydney 6h race, and 1st place with 116km at the Narrabeen Allnighter 12h. Maree also competed at Spartathlon race this year (for which she contributed an article to the September Ultramag on her experience), receiving 42 points in the competition. 8th Place - Darren Linney (SA) - 41 points Finishing in 8th place in the AUTRA 2024 Points Competition is SA's Darren Linney . Darren completed 34 laps at No Time to Die BYU, 199km at the Adelaide 24h race, and 814km at the Australian 6 Day race, for a total of 1241km raced and 41 points . 9th Place - Tristan Cameron (WA) - 40 points Finishing in 9th place in the AUTRA 2024 Points Competition is WA's Tristan Cameron. Tristan completed the Ultra Series Triple Crown of 200 mile races (Delirious WEST, Irrational SOUTH and Unreasonable EAST), along with Feral Pig 100 miler, for a total of 1154km raced and 40 points. 10th Place - Jen Millum (WA) - 39 points Finishing in 10th place in the AUTRA 2024 Points Competition is WA's Jen Millum . Jen finished 1st at all three of the Ultra Series Trilogy of 100 milers (Delirious WEST, Irrational SOUTH and Unreasonable EAST), and was 2nd female with 35 laps at the Wild Dog Backyard Ultra. With a volunteer stint at the Yaberoo Trail Ultra, Jen finished the year with 39 points in the competition.  To view the complete list of members who secured points in 2024 click here and then follow through to Points Summary under the 2024 tab. All winners have already been contacted, with cash prizes distributed for 1st - 7th places, and AUTRA Store vouchers sent for 8th, 9th & 10th.
January 30, 2025
Steve Manning talks strategies for reducing trail running falls risk .
ALL NEWS
Share by: