Motivated to Succeed

Way to stick it to the man! "No running" - yeah, right. One time I was doing a night training run and was coming out of a park when the night time rent-a-cop spotted me and threatened to charge me with trespassing. I simply said "Well, I'm leaving now..." which seemed to irritate him, but that didn't bother me. What's the worst that was going to happen; he chases me down the trail...?

I dare him...

In any case, not to be a buzzkill or anything, but, if I were you, I'd take a day or two off from running. I bet the three or so miles a day feels easy, but it's not the muscles that I'm afraid of; it's the joints that have gotten used to only dealing with the low-impact of biking. Give them a day or two to rebuild and recover, and go at it again. The last thing you want is to be sidelined again with knee problems from the sudden re-introduction of relatively high-impact activity.

The one downside to our beloved sport; it's a frustratingly long, slow buildup process.

Just my $0.02...

*sigh. Alrighty, Coach. I know you are experienced enough to know what youre talkin about :). I'm going to take today off and work on school work. I'm so far behind anyways! I agree though. It's just frustrating. I want to just go out and run for an hour or two you know? I'm just worried about my fitness now. I looked at the 7day forecast this morning and it's rain, rain, thunderstorms, and rain. Should I break out the wind trainer this week and be a garage warrior?

Given your current level of apparent biking fitness, I'd say bike to your heart's content. A couple of days off from running isn't going to take away from your fitness, especially if you fill in those days with biking/wind training. I would conquer the garage for the next day or so, then brave the elements for a run on Thursday.

The main issue to stay mindful of is ample recovery time for the joints for now (even when they don't hurt, which is the hard part for us exercise junkies). So, if I were you, I'd run, say, three days during the week and, if I just felt that overwhelming compulsion to do so (which is often the case), I'd run once over the weekend, filling in the remaining days with the cross training you're used to. As your body readjusts to getting back to running, start filling the other days in or adding mileage to the running days. You'll be back to full strength before you know it...

Okay. That sounds like a pretty rational plan. The only thing though is that if I go by the 10% rule.. we're only talking adding 1 to 1.5 miles a week :-\. Do I just add the extra mileage to my "longer" run for the week? Or spread it out between all the runs? I just want to get back to running long. I know it's going to be tough to keep it all in check though like you said. I truly am an endorphin/exercise junkie.

Early on, the 10% rule is difficult to follow due to the low mileage, and, truth be told, I would (and do) round up when computing my mileage increase (i.e. add 2 instead of 1.5). At this point, it would probably be best to add the mileage onto a single run. That still leaves the recovery days and lets you get a substantially longer run in for the week. The increases will snowball, and before you know it, you'll be hitting higher and higher mileage. (Potential timeline: 2 or 3 weeks to 20/week, then 3 more to 30, then 3 more to 40+, then 2 more to 50; in 11 weeks, you could be hitting over 50/week, not bad...)

Keep the faith, brotha, you're on the way...

I'll try my best to keep the faith John. It's just that now I have a taste of running again I want to run a 1/2 or full marathon. I want to accomplish another goal you know? I understand though that I got to start slow and let the body rest and everything. So I'll take today and tomorrow off and then see how I feel on Thursday for another run.

I know how you feel; I've been there. Keep up the biking, and use the running days' sparsity to your advantage. Look forward to every run; run with Emma whenever you can; enter some 5k's every now and then to spice things up.

A great way to keep you on a training plan is to have a concrete goal hanging out there. Pick a half marathon in a few months, and aim at it. Keep yourself healthy and fit for it, and let the anticipation build. Once race day arrives, use the race as a celebration of being back to full capacity in your running, take stock of where you are, and find another goal race, be it another half, a full marathon, or beyond....

Do you think I would be ready for a halfmarathon in October? I had hoped to do full one, but I am not sure that would be a wise move. At least that would give me a goal to shoot for, you know? I think you're right about the run whenever I can.

I am concerned about speed work. I don't want to push too hard and reinjure myself. Should I do any speed work? How long do I wait? I feel like I have endurance to bang out a couple 6:xx miles but I don't want to regret it.

Benn, good to see you feeling good about running again. How is the body healing from the falls? Nevels will be a great coach.

Stay Kool, B of BS Rools out

Yeah I am anxious to be a runner again! My body is okay. Right hip still very tender and bruised. Right elbow is the worst though. 3" gash or so that is painful to the touch as well as when I bend it and/or shift around in bed, put on shirt, etc. Running is actually the least painful between biking and running right now. But as we have 6 days of rain on the way I am getting ready to bike on the wind trainer I think the next couple days.

I think you would be more than ready for a half in October. Do you have one in mind? I also think you would be able to suffer through a full in about the same time, but it might not be the wisest course of action and might lead down a path we've seen before, but I think a half should be a piece of cake at that point. (Ideally, you'd finish the half saying "is that it?", which would indicate a greater fitness level and set you up for an even bigger goal race a few months later...)

As far as speedwork, I would lay low for the time being. Pound out a few base miles, again, just to get the old joints used to it again. I would also throw in the caveat of simply run how you feel. Don't necessarily hold yourself to a painfully slow pace all the time; run comfortably, and if, every now and then, you're feeling frisky, throw down a slightly faster mile in the middle of a run. The name of the game is still recovery, but we don't want you to learn to hate running because of some abstract set of "universally accepted" recovery "rules." Just run for fun for a while. The speed will come...