Why You Are Always Tired And Think It's Normal

I was speaking to a guy who told me it’s okay to feel tired at his age because he trains and runs ultras.

Then he went on to justify it and all his friends feel the same. They are all the same age.

So waking up tired, training tired and going to be tired is the norm right?

Well actually it’s not. It’s usually a combination of poor training and poor recovery.

There is not one thing that he is doing that makes him tired. It’s many things.

The danger of continuing like that is that at some point this becomes your baseline. He and his mates are constantly fatigued… and you all agree it’s “normal”.

IT’S NOT.

We all know this: if we hang out around people are are fit we will become fitter. If you spend time around people who accept being tired, slow, or carrying excess weight… guess what happens?

Now, I’m not saying don’t run with slower people. But if your goal is to improve, to finish strong, not destroyed…you need to be honest about your environment.

SNOWDONIA TRIP

Last weekend I went to Snowdonia and meet two amazing guys, Shane and Hew.

What stood out wasn’t that they where so strong on technical downhills, but they challenged themselves.

On technical downhills, Shane moved really well with Hew. That pushed me to step up, even though I’m usually more cautious on that terrain. On smoother terrain, I pushed harder and that challenged them.

This is how you improve. Not just by showing up, but by being challenged.

Compare that to running with someone who doesn’t want to push, or simply can’t yet. There is nothing wrong with that. But if that’s your only environment you won’t progress.

FATIGUE

Okay, let’s come back to fatigue.

You see feeling tired if you are over 40 years old man is not normal at all. Let’s not normalise it. It’s a signal.

This usually comes down to:

• you don’t have enough recovery

• too much junk volume

• no structure

• no strength work

• poor fuelling.

People might say they are overtraining, but actually you are not. You are under-recovering and mismanaging load.

Trail running should give us freedom, it should make you feel stronger, not constantly drained.

SOLUTION: do a movement assessment.

See where you have muscle imbalances, understand your muscle imbalances.

The second step is reduce junk mileage and replace it with functional strength training.

The third step is add structure to your training. No random runs.

The last step is the most important: sleep, recovery and nutrition.

ASK YOURSELF:

So how many hours do you sleep? How well do you recover and how well do you fuel your body?

Do you need to lose weight maybe? What’s your body fat percentage? What is optimal for you?

And yes for some people, body composition matters. Carrying excess body fat adds load your body has to deal with.

LAST SOLUTION:

Then the last solution is work on your DURABILITY. I ran a webinar this week, you can watch it on YouTube here.

If you want to finish your next ultra strong… you need to prioritise durability over chasing fitness or VO2 Max.

Feeling tired all the time is not a badge of honour, it’s a signal that your body sends you.

Ignore it long enough and your body will force you to stop.

Let me know your thoughts.

Most runners are not tired because they train hard. They’re tired because they train poorly.