Wheeler Farm Loops

Sounds like a great plan to me. I'm sure you'll be back to 100% in no time at all.

Makes perfect sense. It's past the acute stage now, so some very gentle static stretching will help the new fibres align properly and if you're running slowly with no discomfort then you should be ok.

Be very careful of running downhill - eccentric contractions aren't a good idea in the early stages of recovery from strains.

Isometric contractions, on the other hand, are good. With a straight leg, tense your quads and hold for 2-3 secs and repeat 5 times - don't overdo it.

All being well, you can recover quickly from a slight strain.

That's why I'm running UP to work, and taking the bus down the hill. No downhill running at all for a while until I'm 100% sure.

I'm definitely past the acute stage. The problem is that means any discomfort is gone... no immediate "stop" feedback... the old me would be planning a tempo run tomorrow. The wiser version is not doing anything faster than jogging this week and playing it much safer.

I was reading your back and forth w/ Andrea about cross-training yesterday. Your thoughts really matched my own...

Look at the two dominant groups right now: Africa (yes I'm just going to lump the whole continent together) and the Oregon Project.

In Africa they run, stretch, and massage. That's it. If they are hurt, they rest.

And then look at Salazar's group. They have access to every possible device in the world. If there was a benefit to elliptical/bike/other machine, they'd be using it. Instead - all they use for supplemental work is the Alter-G and water treadmill... very running motion specific.

My thought is that especially during the marathon specific phase of training, when you are trying to become very efficient at a certain pace / cadence, you don't want to be re-wiring your brain to be learning different movement patterns.

During a prolonged time off from running or during a base phase, however, I would say cross training to maintain fitness or build some additional aerobic endurance has its place.

Sounds like a well thought out plan (not that I'd expect anything else). Good luck and I hope it goes quickly.

I definitely agree with you regarding specificity of training.

With that said, in my opinion cross-training has more of a place than simply maintaing aerobic fitness in runners. All too often runners have super strong hamstrings and calves and somewhat weaker glute, hip and quad muscles that often can be addressed through proper crosstraining. For example, for me, uphill biking strengthes all of these considerably.

However, like you have said over and over, the best way to improve your running condition is to run. :)

Love reading your thoughts.

Very smart plan Jake!

Makes sense to me. I hope it heals.

Happy to hear you are behaving semi-conservatively :)

I agree with you Teena, that's kind of what I was trying to get at when I said "base phase"... that's when your trying to build from the ground up, work on weaknesses, etc. Any supplementary work you can do to prevent injuries down the road and find balance is great. I was talking more specifically about the 4-6 weeks before a marathon. I think we've learned that to really optimize performance, you can't just treat that block of time like you are preparing for any other race. The things you do need to be really specifically tailored to dialing in your goal pace and becoming very efficient in that zone. Part of that is neuromuscular, and that's where a uncoordinated joker like me would potentially get in trouble by learning new movement patterns. If I was running Boston, for instance, I'd approach this differently. But w/ a much shorter timetable, I feel like I have to do things a little differently.

And I completely will agree with anyone who says I have no idea what I'm talking about, because I'm basing everything off my intuition :-)

You crack me up ... you definitely know what you are talking about. :)

I LOVE reading your stuff.

Jake - you do have a masters in biomechanics, ya know.

Yeah but the main thing I learned from research is those years is that "everyone is different"

I find the n=1 case studies a lot more interesting and meaningful :-)

I aqua jogged once or twice a week in college for my recovery runs in college I love it and it really does keep your fitness. The main thing about it is to concentrate on running form and not swim and you will get a great workout in. I used the belts for awhile til I got the form down. Do timed pick ups all out running in the pool it really is a total body workout. Hope it heals quick.

Maybe I am weird but I rather enjoyed reading all this commentary.

If you learn to run AND elliptical like me, there is no learning or switching to a new movement pattern. So when you are a little hurt, or semi injured, you just continue with your elliptical fun Jake. Only till your better of course :)

I'm kidding. Ok so, I have strained my quad two different times now. I just elliptical helled my life away for 6 days and didn't run. Aaaaaand then it went away. Both times. And the 2nd time seemed worse than the first. I feel really confident that it will resolve. This is easy compared to some other things that happen to people in training.

I'm not saying you should not run for 6 days. I went with my intuition and it worked :)

Does a day or two count as "a bunch of time off??

I don't have all the biomechanics lingo of cross training to back up my belief in it... but I do know I was a huge ball of injuries until I introduced cross training into my routine. Reading all the other thoughts on it is very interesting though.

Hope this works itself out soon!

A day or 2 off when in the mix of marathon training always feels like a bunch of time off to me Rob. Ha!

Christie - hopefully I'm not coming across w/ a "cross training is bad" message. That's not my intention at all. I think its the smartest, safest way for most people to build up their aerobic volume. In fact, just a couple weeks ago I wrote a way too long blog post about how I believe my non-running activities while I was living in CO is what made me able to handle high volume running training now.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that right now, I'm not worried about aerobic fitness. In this VERY SPECIFIC CIRCUMSTANCE (not yelling just trying to emphasize that point), I'm trying to make sure I can run the race well in 4+ weeks and not be putting myself at risk by doing so. This probably sounds weird, but I'd rather take a little longer to heal, but know I healed the right way and feel confident that my leg is ready to handle the race... than heal quicker but not be completely sure of that fact. It makes sense when I say it explain it out loud, maybe not so much typing. Even Andrea agrees w/ me, so I know I'm on to something :-)

In any case, I'm 99.9% certain the quad strain was a compensation for my achilles. I'm focusing my efforts there, and the quad is already back to the point where I can't even make it hurt, no matter how hard I try.

Very well thought-out plan, Jake. Makes great sense.