- You have no appetite. Not feeling hungry is very unusual for a runner, especially when we are training hard. It’s a sign that you’re stressing your body a lot.
- Sex drive is gone—even on Saturdays. Lack of sexual desire is another sign of overtraining, combined with not eating enough calories and failing to recover.
- You’ve hit a plateau in your performance (or even your times are getting worse). It’s one of the clearest signals: you train hard, you don’t miss any workouts, but your paces, far from improving, are declining. You feel slower and heavier during workouts. Your legs seem unresponsive, you struggle to maintain your usual pace and sessions that you used to do with ease now feel uphill. You don’t feel recovered even after rest days. You arrive at the next training with heavy legs, a sense of accumulated fatigue or a lack of energy. If resting one or two days doesn’t seem enough to feel well again, you may need to reduce the intensity or volume of your training for a while.
- You always feel tired. We’re not talking about the normal tiredness after a demanding session, but a persistent fatigue that accompanies you throughout the day. If you feel drained even when you’re not training, it could be a sign that you’re accumulating too much effort and edging toward overtraining.
- Sleep is as hard as finishing a marathon. There are times when it’s extremely difficult to fall asleep, or you wake up several times at night, or you simply wake up with the sense that you haven’t rested. The excessive physical load can disrupt rest, making recovery even more challenging.
- You snap at the slightest thing. Are you more irritable than usual when you’re normally in a good mood? You get angry easily, you have less patience, or you notice mood swings that weren’t common before. The accumulated physical stress can also affect your emotional well‑being, especially when you don’t leave enough space for recovery.
- Your clock may be warning you. Just monitor your resting heart rate (best assessed upon waking). If it’s 3 to 5 beats per minute above your usual level, and if your waking pulse remains elevated for several days, it could be a sign of physiological stress, insufficient recovery, or illness. The important thing is to look at the trend relative to your usual values, since a single measurement is not enough to draw conclusions.
- You get sick frequently. If you chain together colds or notice that you take longer than normal to recover from minor illnesses, it may indicate your body is carrying too heavy a load. Intense training, combined with insufficient rest and inadequate nutrition, can affect immune function.
- You get injured frequently. If recurring discomfort appears every time you increase your kilometers or train more days in a row, it’s possible your tissues aren’t getting enough time to adapt. Overuse injuries, such as shin splints or stress fractures, are warning signs you shouldn’t ignore.
- You have lost motivation to train. Going out for a run starts to feel tedious; you struggle to find the drive you once had, or you feel that training has become an obligation. Loss of motivation and mental fatigue can accompany physical fatigue when you’ve been pushing yourself for too long without enough rest.
- You have trouble concentrating. You notice your head feels foggy, you get distracted easily, or you find it harder to maintain focus at work and in daily activities. Lack of sleep and accumulated fatigue can affect your concentration and mental clarity.
What should you do if you identify any of these signals?
If you recognize several of these symptoms, it may be time to reduce weekly kilometers, lower the intensity, or introduce a few extra rest days. Sometimes, a temporary pause in running is precisely what you need to return to training with good sensations.
It’s important to know how to recognize what you’re going through because in these cases even though your body asks you to stop, your mind pushes you to keep forcing yourself. Although it may not always manifest as a concrete symptom, repeatedly ignoring fatigue, discomfort and the need to rest can cause you to accumulate more fatigue than you are able to assimilate. Learning to listen to these signals is fundamental for long-term progression.
Remember that resting does not mean losing progress: it is part of training. If the symptoms persist, worsen or recurrent injuries appear, consult with a healthcare professional to rule out other causes and assess how to safely resume activity.
