Running Life after leg break

[Kevin Jessop]

Well I'm back at the running blog. It's a new year and I hope to get back on the wagon;-)

I am looking for advice on a training schedule for the next 3-6 months. I have been running 2-3 times a week for about 3-4 months now since my doctor cleared me for running. I broke my femur last March after the Moab Half Marathon.

I was mountainbiking on the Slickrock trail and crashed right at the end of the trail. It was an impact fracture and my femur broke into roughly 11 pieces high on my left leg. I have a 12 inch plate and some 9 titanium screws now but the bone has healed admirably. I am now trying to get my leg muscles back into shape. I have no restrictions from my doctor but have noticed that I still limp a bit beyond 3-4 miles or so of running. I am entered in the Moab Half Marathon again and plan on running the St. George Marathon and possibly one other marathon. I have run 15 marathons and more halfs than I can count. In a different life (12-14 years ago) I used to race road bikes. Cycling is still my true love, but the training options for running fit my current lifestyle much better. I am married and have 5 kids and prefer to spend daylight hours with them. I enjoy working out with my two teenage girls but try and keep my solo workouts to mornings, mostly before they are awake.

My goals are currently somewhat modest. I hope to finish the Moab half in about 2 hours (hopefully under 2 but not more than 2:10) and have a goal of finishing St. George in 3:30. I have previous PRs of 1:32 for a half marathon and 3:17 for a marathon (though I came within 2 blocks of completing a 3:11 St. George Marathon - heat exhaustion got me and I collapsed.)

I am currently running about 3 times a week for a total of 15 -20 miles. My average pace is in the 9:30ish min/mile pace though I have completed a few single miles at a 7:30 pace. The Moab Half was the only race I completed last year due to the injury. I finished in a respectable though not great 1:45.

I have access to an indoor gym with weights, treadmills and stationary bikes at my office in SLC. I also have a spin bike at home. I try and run about 2 times a week with my old running buddies, Paul Thomas (pthomas) and Larry Marshall. They run between 5 and 8 miles each outing.

[Ted Leblow]

Kevin,

I will try and help although this is a pretty serious injury so I am not sure what you can really handle for that you will just have to listen to your body and see how things progress.

As far as running here is a possible progression to try but again you may need to modify based on how the leg handles things. This may be a bit conservative but I would err on the conservative side with your injury.

Week 1 & 2-
4 runs of 5-7 miles for a total of 20-28 miles. Pace wise just run by feel, if 9:30 is what the body wants then fine if 7:30 then so be it but don't try and push it. So if runs are on Mon, Wed, Fri and Sat then on Tue and Thu I would cross train on something that is lower impact and doesn't seem to bother the leg. The best cross training for running seems to be pool running if you do it right. Another good one is cross country sking. The spin bike would also work well. The idea is to get used to doing something 6 days a week and let the leg slowly adapt and hopefully grow strong again. I would cross train for as much as the leg seems to handle without hurting more on the run days. If it can handle an 30-60 minutes at first that would be good.

Week 3 & 4-
Basically the same as above but add a 5th run on either Tue or Thu but make it only 2-3 miles. Keep the cross training this day but finish up with an easy run afterwards if possible. Again nothing hard just workout by feel.

Weeks 5 to 8-
Same as above but add a 6th run again of only 2-3 miles while keeping the cross training. This will put you at about 25-34 miles + cross training but gets you back to 6 days a week of running. The goal would be to work up to the higher end of this (34 miles) by the end of 8 weeks and see how the leg is handling this.

Weeks 8 to 12-
At this point if the leg is good then you can start to focus on getting a few longer runs a week in and continue to slowly progress the miles up. I would still run by feel as far as pace goes and not worry about speedwork yet. I would try to longer runs maybe on Wed and Sat the first couple weeks of 8-10 miles which would put you around 40 miles. Then I would add a third run of 8-10 miles on Mon to get up around 50 miles a week by about 12 weeks. I would keep the short runs on Tue and Thu with cross training as well.

After this I would work on slowly increasing the Sat long run from 10 miles up to a goal of 20 miles ultimately while pretty much leaving the other days the same. So a weekly progression of something like 12, 14, 15, 16, 18, 20. This would put you around 60 miles a week plus cross training after 18 weeks. At this point if the leg is doing well then you could start looking at adding some tempo runs at goal marathon pace once or twice a week during your longer run days. Maybe a 3-5 mile tempo to start and then work it up to a 10 mile tempo over time. With your goals you do not need much speed work at all and I think it would only put the leg at risk. Marathon pace tempo work would be the key to reaching your goals and being able to sustain running 6 days a week at around 60 miles with cross training will get you there.

I hope this helps, best of luck.

[adam]

Ted outlined a good program to follow. It is important to work your way back up to 6 days a week and work the transistion back to full running with cross training.
I spent a few months in a full length leg cast after breaking the end of my femur in during a soccer tackle. When I was finally able to walk again I started working in the pool for range of motion exercises, did weight training on the affected leg to help bring it back to about equal strength, and also did alot of multidirectional exercises (zig zags through cones, for example). Sometimes my exercises consisted of me walking zig zags back and forth for about 20-30 minutes. Utterly boring, but it helped. I would recommend doing some of these types of exercises as with the break your overall movement abilities are likely lower than normal, and it may help in giving overall strength to your leg.
 

[Sasha Pachev]

Adam:
At what age did you break your leg? Was it before you ran your best 5 K, or after?

[Kevin Jessop]

Sasha - I imagine that your question was intended for Adam, but I will respond also. I am 43 years old now and broke my femur March 17, 2007. My blogname is joecool.

Adam and Ted - Thanks for your kind responses. I have started implementing what Ted suggested and am going to start with some zig-zag exercises as that sounds like it would help a lot.

[Michelle Lowry]

I think that Ted's program is generally good, though I would say it is somewhat conservative with the mileage increases.   When increasing your miles when you are in relatively low mileage arena (20-40 mpw), I think it's ok to just do the maximum 10% increase in miles each week, which would bring you up from 20 mpw to 43 mpw by week 8.  This is of course subject to how you are feeling.  I would go with Ted's program but add more miles if you are itching for more.  Once you get above 40 then there can be some benefit to increasing 10% for a couple weeks, then plateauing for a week, then increasing for two more weeks, or something like that.  My 2 cents