It’s June, I’ve been training for my 1st half ironman race since November and the race is just over a month away. Despite six months of training I haven’t been getting faster. I’m sluggish on the run, dull on the bike, and not looking forward to swimming (though I rarely look forward to swimming). Actually, I’m not really looking forward to working out at all.

I check my training logs and notice some other irregularities, like training MORE despite sleeping LESS. Not exactly a recipe for training success.

There’s a saying I’ve heard before that goes something like, “If you think you’re overtraining you probably are.”

Well, that wasn’t good enough for me. Plus I’m just an amateur athlete, overtraining syndrome is only for professional athletes…right?

I go online and search overtraining, then overtraining and triathlon. I read about 20 different articles. I’m obsessive. I need to know why I’m struggling so much.

Two articles in particular were most helpful.

The first was Phil Maffetone’s article The Overtraining Syndrome. I use Maffetone’s fitness test in to gauge my aerobic fitness. The MAF test is an objective fitness test to assess your aerobic development. If you’re improving there should be a decrease in the amount of time it takes to complete a specicfic distance at a specific heart rate (using a heart rate monitor).

For example, warm up and run three miles (at a running track for the most accurate results) at a heart rate of 150bpm and record each mile time. Then after three to four weeks of training do the same workout and record the mile times again. If you’re improving your times per mile will be faster than times from the previous workout, at the same heart rate. (I’m oversimplifying this, if you want to learn more about how this works check out Phil’s article’s here and here.)

My times during this workout stayed the same from April to May and got worse from May to June. Maffetone suggests that this is a key sign of overtraining.

I’m overtraining though? Not likely. I’m Invincible!

Maffetone also suggests that you can actually perform well in a race despite overtraining, which also happened to me. I had a nice performance at the Bassman Triathlon on May 1st, my first race in almost two years. That race took a lot out of me, and looking at my training logs I didn’t really take the time to recover, running seven miles the next day, biking 35 the next and running 10 miles two days later.

Overtraining? Me? I’m still not convinced.

The other helpful article was this one from USA Triathlon. It provides the largest list of symptoms I found related to overtraining.

Of the twenty symptoms they listed I have fifteen of them…

Persistent Increase and muscle soreness even with sandard/easy to moderate workouts
Slower than normal recovery of Heart Rate after a hard effort
Lingering muscle and joint pain
GI problems — Specifically diarrhea or constipation
Minor abrasions heal slowly
“heaviness” or “sluggish feeling” that lasts for more than 24 hours after standard workouts
A decrease in physical performance, particularly during standard workouts
Loss of joy for competiton
Desire to quit
Loss of general enthusiasm
Easily irritable or heightened impatience or annoyed by otherwise normal interactions with others
Loss of ability to concentrate for long periods of time
Loss of appetite
Loss of Libido
Changes in sleep habits or inability to get quality sleep or unable to sleep.

Upon realizing the amount of symptoms of overtraining my body was harboring I decided finally…that I needed another opinion.

I ask my girlfriend to read one of the articles to see if it sounds like me. I wait patiently while she reads it.
She finishes reading and says nothing. “Thoughts?” I ask.
“Yea, especially the sleep thing…and you’ve been really moody lately too.”
“I have?”
“Yea, complaining a lot more and stuff.”

She’s right. Damn.

What You MIGHT Learn about Overtraining From Me

I wrote the story above because I wanted you to see my thought process. I want you to see how despite my body doing almost everything it can to get me to rest, my mind still needed to read 20 articles and ask someone else to be convinced.

Sometimes we don’t realize things that are extremely obvious. Focus by definition can blind you from seeing other things. My focus on training for this race, took my focus away from the fact that my overall health was declining.

Although, at some level I did sense this coming and I tried to scale back because I knew I was on a slippery slope, but with a race coming up it’s not easy. You want to be prepared for the race, and you’re not going to be prepared if you don’t put in the miles. You rationalize to yourself that you’re better off doing the miles even though you’re not feeling great.

Dropping out of a race you’ve been training months for is hard decision to make. It’s hard to imagine the pressure a sponsored pro athlete like Ryan Hall would feel when deciding whether or not they’re ready to race. Hall decided not to run in the 2010 Chicago marathon after he was feeling a little flat a month or so before the event.

I’m not anywhere close to that competitive level, and unlike him, my livelihood doesn’t rest on racing. Still it was difficult for me to admit that I’m not going to be able to race. I have a new level of respect for athletes that make a decision not to race when they’re not ready.

I wrote what you “MIGHT” learn in the heading, because when it happens to you, you’ll likely shrug off my experience with overtraining and rationalize that it doesn’t apply to you, just like I did with everything I read.

It is possible to overtrain if you’re an amateur athlete. It’s probably even more likely for an amateur than a professional. Pro athletes live the sport, amateur athletes do sport as a hobby and work jobs, have kids to watch, and other variables a lot of top pro’s don’t have to worry about.

After all, overtraining really is just under recovering, and if you’re squeezing training between dozens of other obligations then you have way less time than the pro level racer to rest and recover.

If you’re training for any competition and think you might be experiencing overtraining syndrome Ask yourself what you would do if you didn’t have this competition/race/performance coming up.

I didn’t get a high level of clarity on what to do until I asked this question of myself. For me the answer came fast. “Rest.”

If you’re not doing what’s best for you now because of some future event, re-evaluate.

Where did I go wrong?

I think back to October, around the time I first committed to doing the Providence race. I did a fifty mile bike ride on a cold morning. My friend and I got to the ride late, and we didn’t start until about 20-25 minutes after everyone else. We joked about how cold it was and how maybe we’d just ride home, but there was a certain lightness to our attitudes that day. We ended up passing every other person riding that day and when we got back to the bike shop we waited about 10 minutes until the next person finished up. We really crushed the ride that day and for me it was almost effortless.

At the time I was only training cycling 3 days/week about 6-7 hours a week and I showed a lot of improvement. Once I committed to the Half Ironman, all of a sudden I threw 25 miles a week of running and a couple swims on top of that to be “ready” for the race.

Now I’ll be “getting ready” to watch it as a spectator.

Now I know (obviously) you need to build up to a heavier workload instead of just throwing several hours of training on top of what you’re already doing.

I “knew” that before, but you don’t truly know something until you practice it.

My Training and Racing Plans

The plan now is to take a week off from training. The only exercise I’ll be doing for the next week will be some light walking . After that I’ll re-evaluate and make a decision about what I’m going to do next.

My two big races I wanted to do coming into this year were the Providence Half-Ironman, and the Hartford Marathon. I’m dropping out of Providence. It’s possible I can be ready for Hartford, but I’ll have to re-evaluate as it comes closer.

Thanks for Reading

Let’s do a short exercise to see what I mean. On a piece of paper, number from 1-5 and rank your current top five priorities. Don’t spend more than two minutes on this. You can write down things like family, friends, relationships, work, health, projects, goals or anything else you feel is a priority in your life.

When you’re done look at your list and ask yourself, is this really what my priorities are?

For some reason it’s very easy to lie to yourself about where your priorities stand. You tend to actually write down what you want your priorities to be instead of what they actually are.

How do you know if you’re lying to yourself? I like to take a look at time in two different ways when it comes to priorities, quantity and quality.

Quantity of Time

If you were to rank your five main priorities 1-5 and match them with the amount of time you invest on each would your results be congruent? Are you investing the most time in your #1 priority?

If not think about the things you do spend the most time on. It’s likely that the things you do spend the most time on ARE your top priorities and not the things that you wrote down.

As an example when I did this exercise I realized that I spend way too much time reading articles online and fiddling with my fantasy football team. Those were actually my top priorities, not growing my business like I want it to be.

If you say your top priority is your family but you work a nine hour day with a two hour commute each way, is your family really your top priority? It’s more likely that your top priority is going to work everyday. You could argue that you do this to support your family, but if your family was really your top priority you’d find a new job right?

You can say that one of your top five priorities is your health but if you haven’t exercised in a month and ate fast food twice this week you’re kidding yourself.

The areas where you invest your time are your real priorities, not what you wrote down on your list. Think about what you spend the most time on and write a new 1-5 list ranking the things you spend the most time on. Compare this with your first list and notice the difference.

Quality of Time

Another thing to be honest about is the quality of your time investments.

If you spend eight hours a day working, are you getting eight hours of quality work done everyday? Or do you spend most of your time doing tasks that aren’t really that important?

If one of your top priorities is your health and fitness and you spend an hour and a half each day reading about health and fitness instead of exercising, are you really focusing on your health and fitness? Wouldn’t your time be better spent if you were actually using that time to exercise?

If one of your top priorities is your family, are you investing quality time with them or are you just sitting around watching tv together? Is watching a few hours of tv equivalent to quality time?

Don’t trick yourself into thinking that your priorities are accurate just because you throw time at them. That might not be enough. Throwing Quality Time at your priorities is way more important.

How did you do on this exercise? If your results are congruent great, but if they’re not it means you’re not actually focusing on the things that are most important to you. Long term this will lead to stress and unhappiness, which I’m sure you know is unhealthy.

I wrote this article because I want to make sure everyone is investing their time in the best way for them. I’ve heard people say that their health is very important to them yet their actions aren’t in line with that belief. It’s been written that time is our most precious resource as humans. It’s one thing to believe at an intellectual level time is our most precious resource. It’s another thing entirely to be living your life as if time were your most precious resource. Use what you’ve learned reading this article and doing this exercise to help bring your time usage in line with your true desires.

Did you do the exercise? If not go back and do it, I think you’ll be surprised at your results, because I was. Once you’re done with the exercise, leave a comment at and tell me how the exercise affected you.

Gladwell points out that epidemics have three characteristics. Contagiousness, little causes and big effects, and their rise and fall in a single moment.

The way the internet works today is very important to contagiousness. Things are spreading constantly like mini epidemics. Social media services like Digg were practically built on that concept. Ditto for Twitter. The blogosphere too. Information digitized is very contagious.

Growing consciously is all about little causes and big effects rising and falling iin the moment.

Lets explore Gladwell’s three rules for epidemics and how they apply to conscious growth.

Stickiness

Stickiness is the ability of a message to spread. If something is able to spread quickly it’s sticky. If it isn’t it’s not. Is growth sticky? Absolutely. Change is sticky. Especially positive change. Barack Obama’s political campaign in 2008 really took advantage of that. The stickiness is built right in to the message. People want to their lives to be better. Most of the highly conscious people I’ve met want the world to better too. I went to Steve Pavlina’s Conscious Growth workshop a few weeks ago and one of the phrases I heard a lot was changing the world. The inherent stickiness comes from the fact that many of us realize that the world isn’t nearly as good as it could be right now. There’s this want to make things better not just for ourselves but for everyone on the planet and there’s a great opportunity right now to do that. At an individual level we want our lives to be better. At a social level we want everyone’s lives to be better. Change is the stickiness of a growth epidemic.

The Power of Context

The power of context tells us that our environment and groups of people play a big role in what we do. What is the context of growth? Our environment isn’t in good shape right now. My immediate world is in ok shape right now, but things could be a lot better globally. People in other parts of the world are not as fortunate as I am. People are unhealthy, starving, there’s wars going on, and the environment is deteriorating. I don’t like that. In the world I envision those things don’t happen. Those conditions and the awareness around them are invitations for change.

I’ll address groups in the next section, because there’s one group in particular that’s very important.

There’s power in that context. The world is good, but it could be much better. A growth epidemic has strong context.

The Law of the Few

The Law of the few says that there’s very specific people that start and cause epidemics. Gladwell identifies the few as the connectors, mavens and salesmen of society. Who are the mavens, connectors and salesmen in a growth epidemic? It’s growth related bloggers, and all bloggers in a sense, because a good blogger is all three of those things.

Connectors

One piece of advice given when starting a new blog is to find and occupy a niche. That’s exactly what a connector does. Gladwell says a connector is someone occupying the corners of society. There’s so many different blogs and bloggers out there talking about growth. Something really unique about blogging is that they all connect to one another. If one blogger reads another bloggers post, they link to it or post a comment on it. This is hardcore connecting going on through hyperlinking in cyberspace.

By blogging the bloggers get an audience. They get to know readers and readers get to know them. Connectors know lots of people and lots of people know them. A blogger is an excellent connector.

Mavens

A maven as defined by Gladwell is an info broker, someone who helps because they like to help. See the connection to blogging? Bloggers write about topics to get information into the minds of readers searching the googles all over the world. The majority of bloggers get nothing directly out of doing it. There’s internal rewards sure, and external rewards for very few, but even so they still do it.

Blogging is the fastest growing medium ever. There’s over 100 million blogs on the internet. 100 million! That means there’s about 100 million people just writing blogs. That doesn’t even count the people reading blogs. The nature of blogging is growth oriented. The most popular blogs are blogs that help the readers in some way. If you follow any blogs regularly ask yourself what you get out of them. You’ll come up with something, otherwise you wouldn’t be following it.

Salesmen

A salesman is a person who is intensely persuasive. It’s not that person tries to be persuasive, they just are. They naturally infect you in a positive way. The bloggers that you read, you read them because there’s something about them you like. You relate to them on some level. You allow them persuade you on things.

The nature of blogging is persuasive. Searching for something online is like allowing yourself to be persuaded. Giving someone permission to connect with you. Permission to teach you something you didn’t know. Most people come to blog articles through search engines, searching for a piece of information they need. When the blogger gives it to you in a way you appreciate you’re sold on them.

We’re seeing a lot of blogs these days with themes of change, and growth. A lot of websites talking about changing the world. The more people we see enter this conversation the greater chance of social development we have. Bloggers because of all of the things they do are sticky people.

I’m not saying that solely blogging will change the world. Blogging itself is just part of the puzzle, because in any epidemic including a growth epidemic…

Little Things Make a Big Difference

An epidemic is something small that spreads quickly into something big. So how do you do to create a personal growth epidemic in your life? How can we create a growth epidemic in society? How can we get the results we’re after?

In one of the most interesting parts of the Tipping Point Gladwell writes about how seemingly unrelated events make huge differences in epidemics looked at in the book. In New York City, public officials were able to curtail crime on the subway by arresting fare beaters at subway turnstiles and painting over graffiti on subway cars. They applied the same principle to the streets and began arresting people for public drunkenness and public urination.

These seemingly insignificant actions had a major effect. Crime in New York City dropped dramatically over the next few years after 1990. What about this can be applied to personal and social growth? There’s tiny actions adding up all over the world right now, and they all begin at the individual level.

The Broken Windows Theory

The Broken Windows Theory says that an environment with “broken windows” is a likely environment for more violent crime because broken windows give the impression that no one cares about the area. Broken windows can be anything eliciting neglect, not just glass.

In New York City the lesser crimes like fare beating and public urination were the broken windows that invited more violent crime like murder. By reducing the smaller crimes they greatly reduced the larger crimes. How can we apply this to personal growth?

Fix Your Broken Windows

Every event in your life, even seemingly insignificant events make a big difference. Every choice you make from the decision of what time you wake up in the morning to where you put your keys after you come home are important.

So what are some things you do that invite larger “crimes” in your life? Do you leave dirty dishes in the sink? Do you hold your tongue about something you really want to say to your boss? Or your partner? Do you leave your socks on the floor after you take them off? (I’m guilty of this one )

Maybe telling your partner you love them and giving them a hug one extra time per day will lead to a more fulfilling relationship. Over the course of 6 months that leads to 180+ hugs and I love you’s. It’s very possible that could make the difference between a successful and failed relationship. What’s one little thing you can do in your relationship to show your partner you love them and keep your relationship strong?

Where are the broken windows in your life? How can you begin to start repairing them? Maybe you can triple your productivity by picking your dirty socks up off the floor. Seems unlikely but is it totally impossible? Who knew curtailing violent crime in New York City could come from cleaning up graffiti and cracking down on public urination, but that’s what happened. Who knows? Something small might steamroll into something bigger.

To think more globally where are the broken windows in society? And how can we fix those?

The awesome thing about growth is that once you’ve repaired your own broken windows you can help other people repair theirs. Some of the windows you’ve already fixed on your own building will undoubtedly be broken on someone else’s. This gives you an opportunity to contribute, connect, help out, and further your own growth too.

Take Any Action

Remember, these actions aren’t necessarily related. In the previous paragraph I gave you an example where they were. Working a little on your relationship leads to a successful relationship. But maybe making your bed everyday will give you a more fulfilling relationship. Maybe getting 10 minutes of exercise everyday will make you a better relationship partner.

All the aspects of our lives are interconnected but we have a tendency to ignore this and compartmentalize areas. The food you eat can have an interesting effect on your mood and emotions. So can exercise. So can your job. And they all affect each other too.

The influences in my life at the time I’m writing play a big role in the type of article I write and how it’s written. If I’m reading a lot about a particular subject at the time it tends to show in my writing. I even notice that I subtly emulate the style of the writer after I’ve read a piece by a certain author.

This is actually a good thing, because when we focus on one area and compartmentalize it for a little bit, we actually improve other areas too. Focusing on your math skills might improve your writing or vice versa.

I’ve been writing a lot recently and I’ve found through writing that my reading comprehension is a little bit better than it was before. I’ve been moving through books faster than normal.

Experiment

A key is ability and willingness to experiment. Make a change and notice the feedback you’re getting. It could be emotional, spiritual, physical or it could come from another person. No action is too small.

Make a small change in your daily routine and notice how it affects the rest of your day. Write it down in a journal or text program. Even things that seem unrelated could possibly help. For example if you have a goal that you want to exercise everyday. Maybe watching less tv will help, or drinking more water throughout the day. It’s can be a little hard to tell, but you have to be willing to try anything to get the results your after.

It’s not necessarily that all of these little actions add up and produce a large result over time. That’s something I hear a lot, little actions add up and over time you will begin to see results, but that’s not the way it typically happens. It’s more like small actions lead you to take bigger actions. Those bigger actions lead you to take even bigger actions, and all of a sudden you’re seeing progress. That’s your tipping point.

Many of the very productive people I know of make their bed everyday. Most will scoff and say “oh well that doesn’t make you more productive” and you’d be right in saying that because there isn’t ONE thing. It’s many things.

We don’t usually see experimentation on a grander scale. Most people aren’t willing to experiment to create large social changes. The way our economic system works doesn’t make it any easier either. Having to make money can be a direct barrier in willingness to experiment. Many people aren’t willing to invest money they won’t ever get back. If something helps people but doesn’t appear to be profitable, the likelihood of it getting done is small. That’s a big reason we have more than enough food to feed everyone on the planet but there’s still plenty of people that go hungry.

Fundamental Attribution Error

Some actions might hold more weight than others but that doesn’t mean the ones that hold less weight aren’t important. This is a version of the FAE (Fundamental Attribution Error) from the Tipping Point.

Humans like to attribute effects to one major cause. We make blanket statements about what specifically makes us successful in an endeavor. Instead, it’s usually a lot of smaller causes and a few medium causes all together that produce a desired result.

When I want to stop idle web surfing (something that still bites me today) it helps when I realize I’m about to open up my browser for no conscious reason. Then I just stop. I just close the browser. That tiny little action caused me to think about what I really wanted to do. I might do some writing after that or go for a run. Does closing my web browser make me a better runner?

Here’s where we see the gray area. It’s hard to make an unrelated connection like that, but it is true that without closing my browser I might not have gone running. Closing my web browser had a little ripple effect through the rest of my day. So does closing my web browser make me a better runner? I say absolutely YES!

Your Tipping Point

When you have a sudden awareness of progress that’s your tipping point. It would be like if your interest rate went up every time you put money in the bank. You’d keep adding money to your account and your rate keeps going up. Keep adding the money and the rate keeps going up. One month you’d look at your bank statement and be a little surprised about all the money you’d banked. When you look at that bank statement you’d realize your finances tipped. All of a sudden crime in New York City drastically declined. Crime in New York City tipped.

The tipping point works like that in your personal life too. You’re exercising day after day. When you notice you’re looking a little thinner in the mirror you’ve tipped. It’s like an epidemic of your awareness. All of a sudden you’re just noticing all the progress you’ve made from the time you’ve been putting in.

September 2008 was a Tipping Point for financial markets. All of the inputs that went into the moment when the institutions collapsed had been going on for years. That one moment where it’s noticed is the Tipping Point.

Start an Epidemic Today

My challenge to you is to do just one thing right after you’re done reading this article. Anything. Just pony up and do it. Start a positive epidemic. Notice how it affects the rest of your day.
If you’re stuck for ideas here’s 20.

20 “Insignificant” Actions

1. Close your browser
2. Turn off the TV
3. Open a book
4. Read for 5 minutes
5. Go outside
6. Go for a walk
7. Go for a run
8. Do 1 pushup
9. Do some jumping jacks
10. Take out a pen
11. Send someone a hand written thank you note
12. Give a hug
13. Tell someone you love them
14. Say hi to a stranger
15. Play a game w/ your child
16. Call a friend
17. Throw away something unhealthy
18. Pick one piece of dirty clothing up off the floor
19. Write a sentence
20. Clean off your table or desk

The growth epidemic is already underway. I’m a part of it, and if you’re reading this you’re probably a part of it too. Keep doing the little things in your own life and make a big difference in society.

Note: I obviously heavily used Malcolm Gladwell’s material in this post. He is one of my favorite authors and hold all his work in extremely high regard. The Tipping Point is about 10 years old, but it’s still as relevant as ever. Buy the Tipping Point Here (not an Affiliate Link)

Did you like this article? Please leave a comment below and share your thoughts!
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