The Overtraining Matrix

Running, in moderation, is usually a healthy pursuit. But when we commit to high-mileage training, how seriously should we be about taking rest?

- Lisa Nevitt

When trail star Ryan Sandes won the North Face TransGranCanaria (a 125km race through the mid-altitude areas on the Spanish island of Gran Canaria) at the start of the racing season in 2014, he was in the shape of his life.

In the same year, he trained for the Drakensberg Grand Traverse (a 209km Fastest Known Time (FKT) attempt) with adventurer and endurance athlete Ryno Griesel. Mileage is often hard to gauge with trail running, but the pair were training between 15 and 30 hours a week.

Sandes scored highly at the Ultra Trail World Tour. Then he decided to race the Ultra Trail Mount Fuji – which meant he would compete in a 24-hour event just two weeks after he’d run a record time of 41 hours and 49 minutes at the Drakensberg Grand Traverse. He thought that because the races were fairly slow going, the distance wouldn’t take it out of him.

But the truth is, no-one can get away with running three to four ultra marathons in a year. Even the body of an elite athlete can only be pushed so far.

Soon, the cycle of too much racing, and not enough recovery, began to take its toll – in the most frightening of ways…

Sudden decline

Feeling tense and anxious before a big race is only natural, but the stress Sandes felt before his next race, the Western States 100-miler (160km) in June 2014, was much higher than he was used to. Usually he had a cast-iron stomach that nothing would affect, and good tolerance for high temperatures.

But during this race, Sandes’ stomach didn’t feel right, and he felt like he was overheating. His legs felt heavy, and seized up: it was as if – inexplicably – they had nothing left. Despite the effort he had made in training, Sandes only came fifth.

In December that year, tests revealed he had glandular fever.