Hitting a wall? Why your training plateau isn't a failure

We’ve all been there. You wake up, look at your running shoes or your bike, and feel absolutely nothing. The drive is gone. Your recent sessions feel like you are moving through wet concrete, your pace has flatlined, and every climb feels twice as steep as it did a month ago.

It is easy to look at a plateau and think you are failing. But here is the truth: a plateau isn't a failure. Physiologically, it could be a good sign that your body has successfully adapted to your current routine.

More importantly, that heavy, unmotivated feeling usually isn't about the training at all. It is about the "invisible weight" you are carrying. And there’s as name for this.

For most of us, training is squeezed into the margins of an already demanding life. What many athletes don't realize is that your central nervous system doesn’t categorize stress.

A tough day at the office, a sleepless night, financial worries, and a high-intensity interval session all draw from the exact same well of energy. This total accumulated stress is called allostatic load. When you hit a physical or mental wall, it is rarely because your body forgot how to run or ride. It’s usually because your "life load" has become too heavy for your body to recover from your "training load."

You aren't failing. You are just carrying a lot.

Stop Waiting for Motivation, because when the overall load is high, motivation is the first thing to disappear. Motivation is a feeling, and feelings are fickle. It asks: Do I feel like doing this? (And on a Tuesday evening after a long workday, the answer is usually no).

Discipline, on the other hand, asks: Does this align with who I am and where I want to be?

When motivation hits absolute zero, you must lower the friction to let discipline take over. This is where I find The 10-Minute Rule very helpful. Tell yourself you only have to go out for 10 minutes. If you still want to quit after 10 minutes, you can turn around and go home completely guilt-free. Often, simply breaking the inertia of the couch is enough. Once the blood is flowing, discipline kicks in to carry you the rest of the way. Often all you need to overcome a slump is a change of approach, a pivot in your plan if you will. Now yes, it’s easier said than done but training isn’t all physical, it’s psychological as well, and learning to be mentally flexible is key to working through these periods in your training.

Ok so, a training plan is a great map, no doubt, but it makes a terrible master. If you wake up with high mental fatigue, forcing yourself to hit a specific pace or power output is a recipe for feeling defeated.

Instead of fighting your body, try Autoregulation. Put less weight on the metrics and run or ride by RPE (Rate of Perceived Exertion based on a scale of 1 to 10). If your schedule calls for a "Tempo" effort, but you are exhausted, your usual 5:00/km pace might feel like an all-out sprint. Autoregulation means you train at the feeling of a Tempo effort (a 7/10), regardless of what the watch says. This allows you to get the right physical stimulus without burying your nervous system.

Your Weekend Challenge: The Play Session

I find a few autoregulated sessions reset my joy factor. When we get overly focused on the data, i.e. the pace, the heart rate, the segment times, we easily lose connection to the intrinsic joy of the sport. We forget why we started.

So, here is your challenge for the weekend: Schedule a Play Session.

Pick one run or ride this weekend and leave the GPS watch at home (or put a piece of tape over the screen). Go to a trail you’ve never explored. Don't look at your pace. Stop to take in the view. Grab a coffee on the way home. Remove the pressure of "improving" for just one day, and watch how quickly the motivation to train comes rushing back.

See you out there.