On this episode of the Ask Coach Parry podcast, we have a runner struggling all of a sudden on their Comrades Marathon Finishers programme. What could be the cause for this, and what can be done to try get back on track? A secondary question regarding breathlessness, is important to hear about, as it could be a sign of big problems.

Brad Brown: Onto this edition of the Ask Coach Parry podcast and it was a question that was submitted by Alex. I’ve got Lindsey Parry once again. Hi, Lindsey, Alex is saying that they’ve been following, I’m not sure if Alex is a guy or a girl, but Alex said, I’ve been following the Comrades Marathon Finishers Programme since July. Have managed to stick to the times and run at a pace between 6-7 minutes per kilometre. However, in the last month I feel that every time I run, I’m getting weaker and weaker and really struggling and getting seriously out of breath.

I usually cross train on the rest days with spinning or resistance training. Alex says, I’m quite active during the day, on top of my running. Do you think I’m not resting enough and is this making me weak or am I still going to take longer to get running fit?

Lindsey Parry: I am a little bit concerned on two fronts. The first thing is that the general fatigue is not good, it does mean that the programme is advancing a little too quickly for you. Between the programme, the cross training and the activity during the day, your programme is out of balance and it’s not allowing you to recover.

We do need to look at factoring in a little bit more recovery time into your programme, maybe reducing either the cross training or the actual training a bit. In the short term I would look at maybe three runs a week and certainly if you’re following one of the programmes where there’s a bit of intensity involved, I would certainly drop that intensity and just do easy running in its place.

Battling with breathlessness – find the cause ASAP

The breathlessness is a concern to me because not only are you now running slower, which would be normal if you had very fatigued legs, but if you had very fatigued legs and were running slower, your respiratory driver and heart rate response should also decrease.

So that feeling of breathlessness is a concern to me and obviously without being able to ask you a few other pertinent questions, I would encourage you to go and get that checked out. Because that can be an indication of potential cardiovascular issues and obviously that is something that you really don’t want to struggle with for too long.

BB: Alex, there you go. Lindsey, thank you so much for your time today on the Ask Coach Parry podcast, we look forward to doing it again. Don’t forget, if you have questions you’d like to submit, all you need to do is head over to the website, askcoachparry.com.

You can submit them there, you can also find Lindsey on Twitter or you can just pop it onto my Twitter account as well, we’ll answer them from there too. Check us out on Facebook as well. Until next time, from the two of us, it’s cheers.