In December of last year, I pinched a nerve in my back while training for my first marathon.  The pinched nerve sent referred pain down to my right leg.  I believe that I pinched the nerve from the deterioration of my running form from a lack of core strength and the heavy training load of marathon training.

In the middle of January, on a physician's advice I stopped running.  Once the leg stopped hurting, I started doing a pilates style work out.  Lots of push ups, burpees, sit ups, crunches, standard and side planking, etc.  in an effort to improve my core fitness.  From barley being able to do 10 pushups, I'm now up to 30 push ups in a minute and 30 sit ups in a minute.

I'm going back to the doctor on Monday and anticipate being released to run again.  I've signed up for a late October marathon.  I've also signed up for a marathon training class with a local running shop.  The class starts in June.  I've always trained alone.  I'm hoping to learn more about marathoning and avoid mistakes/injury.

So my question to y'all is what to do between now and June?  I don't think I need to go back to C25k.  I thought about starting out by running 3-4 miles a day three to four days a week.  Then increase the number of days to five to six two weeks later, and lengthen the mileage out to 5-6 mile a day in late May.  Any thoughts?

Rick

Welcome back! I know how great you must feel to be able to run again.

I am not a reliable source of training advice, but the things I have read are (1) err on the side of more days/less miles, (2) do not even wear a watch unless you need it for mileage, just run everything real easy.

Part of how fast you can come back will depend on your age, your mileage before the injury (including your mileage base before you went into the aborted marathon training), and your experience.  Since you have not previously run a marathon and are coming off an injury incurred during marathon training, a marathon in October from a base of 0 is a pretty aggressive plan.  I got injured just about the same time (Jan 3), have run two marathons previously, am 46 years old, and expect to be running again in about 2-3 weeks after having knee surgery in March.  I would not schedule a marathon in October.  I have a half scheduled in March 2015 and would consider a fall half if training is going well by late summer.  Ideally going into full marathon training, you want to have a base of 25 miles/week for 6-12 months (12 is better) before starting the marathon training plan.

Thank you everyone for your thoughts.  I'm going to start with three miles a day this week.  Docket I need to find my copy of Pfitz's book for the plan.  I think the emotional scars from Pfitz's 18/55 have mostly healed by now.  

Susan, I especially thank you for your thoughts.  My October marathon is the Marine Corps Marathon.  Before I threw my combination cover into that ring, I asked my orthopedist if he thought a fall marathon would be realistic.  He said if the pain does not come back, then yes.  So based on my physicians' advice I entered the MCM lottery and was lucky enough to win.

Also, Susan, you characterized my last training cycle as an aborted marathon training cycle.  That's not exactly accurate.  I ran the marathon.  Yes it hurt.  Yes, it was awful.  Yes it was stupid, and no I should not have done that. In my twelve week physician-imposed cessation from running, I had a chance to reflect on my thinking.  I asked myself why I ran the marathon when injured.   My brain has coalesced around two thoughts:

1.  It's a marathon.  It's supposed to hurt.

2.  I was training for the WDW marathon, and I'd sunk a crap-ton of money into the whole Disney vacation thing.

So going forward, I've set up an escape plan.  My airline tickets to DC are frequent flyer tickets.  They are fully refundable back into miles.  Unlike Disney, the MCM bib is transferable.  I probably wouldn't have a problem finding a taker here on RA.   Finally, I have mere hotel reservations in DC and not a pre-paid Disney experience.  It's a whole lot easier  to walk (hobble?) away from the MCM than Disney.

Rick

So my question to y'all is what to do between now and June?

This is an extremely touchy subject (which would explain the lack of traffic) because none of us can say for certain what you should do.  I am going to agitate the shit out of one my favorite members here by saying this but you will need to listen to your body.

In doing that throw all training plans and race aspirations out of the window for now and let your body and how you feel be your guide, not the fact that an event is nearing and you need to start training for it.

I can only tell you what I did coming off of a debilitating SI joint injury which was run every other day for a month, basically starting with a toe in the water and inching it forward for about three weeks before I stuck my whole foot in.  I did not have my first back to back running days until four weeks.

Those runs in miles were 1.5, 2, 4, 4, 4 , 4, 5, 5.1, 5,1, 5.1, 5.1, 5.5, 6, 6.1.

The thing about back injuries is the mental torment you go through when you resume because you simply do not know if it is the injury you feel in your back or just your back readjusting.  The only thing left to do at that point is to play it safe and run lightly then back off.  Run lightly then back off.  Run lightly then back off.  Eventually at some point you will know if your body is adapting to the stress of running or still injured.

I would not set anything in stone and instead would just go out and take it short and easy for a few weeks then assess where you are based on how you feel while you are running and afterwards.  Otherwise if you plan to run 4 miles a day for two weeks then 5 to 6 miles after that you will find a way to make it happen, likely ignoring any signals from the body that you need to back off in the process.

I also believe that if you fail to plan, you should plan to fail.  Perhaps this isn't the time to plan or even have a plan.

Well in that case you could simply plan on not planning anything until you are certain your body can handle a plan.  A conservative plan might take 30 days or thereabouts so plan to be ready to revisit your plan in about a month. That way you can have your cake and plan to eat it too!