I have read tons of articles and anecdotes on how much fitness you lose per week of non-training and most people say you don't really lose anything after 2 weeks off and after that it starts to decline. Well, I can tell you from experience that after taking 3 weeks off it definitely felt like I was starting from square one again. I was huffing and puffing on the treadmill after a mile and I am sure those old ladies who I blogged about that reeked of booze and cigarettes were just walking there laughing at me as I got bright red in the face and thought I was going to pass out.
However, slowly but surely things are starting to get back to normal after about 3 weeks of training. I heard that on average it takes twice as long to get back in shape as the number of weeks you took off which means I'm looking at another 3 weeks to get back to feeling good which actually feels about right.
My first week back I did the whole run-walk treadmill thing because I knew I needed to take it slow. Here is my first week's log:
Week 1 Total: 19.5 miles.
| Monday: | 2 miles | ||||||
| Tuesday: | 3 miles | ||||||
| Wednesday: | 4.5 miles | ||||||
| Thursday: | 2 miles | ||||||
| Friday: | Rest | ||||||
| Saturday: | 3.5 miles | ||||||
| Sunday: | 4 miles |
For a first week back the mileage may have been a little on the high side but I had a lot of pent up anxiety and stress that I needed to work out. For the 3 weeks I wasn't running I had problems sleeping at night, always felt sluggish and was generally very irritable, which I am sure Tina appreciated. I also became extremely obsessed with my weight which is a touchy subject as within a week or so I had gained about 4-5 lbs and was still eating right, but I am guessing now that was mostly water since I was actually not constantly dehydrated. The weight came off pretty quickly after starting to run again so that is definitely a helpful boost in my confidence that I can maintain my weight loss forever.
Thursday was the only sketchy day where I felt a bad twinge in my foot on the treadmill so called it quits and took a day off. I would soon come to find out that twinges after injury are just par for the course. I am not sure if they will ever go away but I definitely occasionally feel something that just doesn't feel quite right in my foot/ankle but doesn't hurt. I may at some point go get an MRI just to see what is up but I have heard that after 3-4 months the twinges go away.
The next week was really the first week of real running as I didn't do any run-walk because the long run on Sunday of 4 miles felt really good. I started back mostly on the trails because the surface is softer and more forgiving on the joints and god knows I needed it. I felt like a truck hit me after every run that week. I did my new stretching routine, rolled my muscles to release tension and just about anything else I could do to stay loose. I haven't felt as out of shape running since I started two summers ago as I did during this week. You can see below that I logged decent miles but man did I struggle, although I did survive a 10 mile long run when I only was planning on running 8. It was pretty hard to believe I was struggling to run 10 miles when I had just ran a marathon a month before.
Week 2 Total: 36 miles.
| Monday: | 5 miles | |
| Tuesday: | 6 miles | |
| Wednesday: | 5 miles | |
| Thursday: | 6 miles | |
| Friday: | 4 miles | |
| Saturday: | Rest | |
| Sunday: | 10 miles |
I was finally starting to get back into a rhythm training wise in week 3 but my body was still really feeling the effects of trying to get back into shape. Needless I dragged my ass through quite a number of the runs that week. In the middle of the week I ran the Ayer Thanksgiving 5k which I'll write up a separate post on shortly. I ended the week with another good long run covering a half marathon (HALF WAY BACK BABY!).
Week 3 Total: 44.85 miles.
| Monday: | 6 miles | |
| Tuesday: | 8 miles | |
| Wednesday: | 6 miles | |
| Thursday: | 3.1 miles | |
| Friday: | 8 miles | |
| Saturday: | Rest | |
| Sunday: | 13.75 miles |
Right now my training is really geared towards building my base aerobic fitness to where it was for the marathon. The plan is basically to build my mileage back up to where I can run 70 mpw regularly in preparation for my next marathon where I hope to peak somewhere around 90 mpw. After the base building but before marathon training (not sure if it is going to be spring or fall) I am going to start working on speed. My big goals for next year are to drop my 5K and 10K times significantly as I need to be comfortable running fast so that the marathon pace feels slow.
My extremely ambitious goals can be found on the "Training Info" page but basically 17:30 for the 5K and 36:00 for the 10K, which are some serious doings. My new training paces and schedule is geared towards a 2:50:00 marathon which should put me comfortably under my 3:00:00 goal and my Boston qualifying requirement.
Only time will tell and just hope and pray that my ankle and foot hold up to the training stresses.
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