The good -- all the tiny Ebola/SARS/Hanta zombies in my hip seem to have been successfully terminated for the time being.
The bad -- I have 52 days left.
At this time last week, I was strongly considering cancelling my lodging and eating the entry fee. Now, I'm glad that I didn't. That said, the original plan to shoot for 2:45ish is totally unattainable with a big chunk of training missing. But, I can perhaps go after something less lofty.
So, (especially those of you that have bounced back from an injury) how to ramp back up quickly without overdoing it? I'm thinking the next two weeks should focus on getting my mileage back up, with little focus on pace. Then, start pushing portions of MLRs and LRs back towards something reasonable.
A-goal would be sub 3:00, B - sub 3:10, C - enjoy a nice, pain-free Fall long run in the mountains and look ahead to April 2015.
I set my Grand Master Marathon PB with only 6 weeks of specific training. I was not injuried, instead coming off 5k training when I decided to switch gears mid-stream. I also ended up setting my all-time yearly mileage PB, so I was running decent miles. The changes I made were drastic; easy 22 miler the 1st weekend along with a race pace workout of some sort, otherwise mileage was similar.
Coming off an injury or time out I would be very careful about transitioning back to activity. Smart about killing the quality workouts and just getting the legs back to running volume. Depending on how long you've been out and what your quality workouts looked like pre-time out you may find you bounce back pretty quickly. Obviously, you'd want to get in a few long runs and some quality pace workouts while still giving you enough time to recover by race day. Throw the schedule away. Let your body decide what it can do.
Youth Has No Age. ~ Picasso / 1st road race: Charleston Distance Run 15 Miler - 1974 / profile
You can't "ramp back up quickly without overdoing it." If you ramp back up quickly, you will overdo it.
I was out for six weeks with a stress fracture. At the time I went down, my fitness was in a good place and I was working on my speed. That was in mid-March. I couldn't run again until mid-May. It is now early August and I am just now aerobically back to where I was when I got hurt although I'm not certain I have all of my stamina back.
As a general guideline, if you are out for whatever reason, and your absence is longer than about a week or maybe 10 days, it will take you twice as long as you were out to get back to where you were when you went out. If you try to rush it, the only thing that happens is that you end up hurt. You need to develop a rational plan for ramping back up that places injury prevention as the only goal in the plan and then you need to stick to it. Prior to my injury, I was routinely running 60-70 mpw. Here is what it looked like coming back.
Week 1 - 9 miles
Week 2 - 30 miles (Knew I'd overdone it and had to back down)
Week 3 - 20 miles
Week 4 - 42 miles
Week 5 - 52 miles (Note that I still haven't done any speed work. None)
Week 6 - 60 miles (One informal speed work day)
Week 7 - 42 miles (Same speed as last week)
Week 8 - 62 miles (With a tempo run and a 5K race)
Week 9 - 60 miles (With a tempo run and a 5K race)
Week 10 - 43 miles (With a hill workout and a 5K race)
Week 11 - 62 miles (With a VO2max workout and it felt great)
Week 12 - 76 miles (With a tempo run, an "R" workout, and a long run) (I finally felt at this point that I was pretty much, at least aerobically, back to where I was when I got hurt)
Week 13 - 71 miles (With a tempo run and a 2.5 hour long run)
I am now in Week 14 and, ironically enough, I went for a 5 mile jog yesterday morning and an 8 mile run last night. My comment in my log was that I now feel like I am aerobically back to where I was when I got hurt. It has taken this long. Give it time. You can't rush coming back from a break and especially not when the break was due to an injury.
Short term goal: 17:59 5K
Mid term goal: 2:54:59 marathon
Long term goal: To say I've been a runner half my life. (I started running at age 45).
I think you have the base to try something like this. I would treat Week 1 as a buildup of easy runs and start introducing speedwork on Week 2 while also increasing the miles. Maybe look at Daniels and create your own as the book allows you to based on the weeks you have left.
Damaris
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race obsessed
If you have Daniels 3rd, there are some guidelines for mileage and coming back from time off.
Offhand I don't recall the page or specific information, just that I read it.
I am kind of in the same boat (but a slightly better one because I have more time). I had to take 4 weeks off for a calf strain. My return to running mileage for the past weeks has been 19, 31, 46, 54, 56 and I am just now feeling ready to start speedwork. But I am far from the shape I was in pre-injury even though I cycled pretty hard in my down time.
My ramp up has been pretty aggressive but I seem to be doing okay with it - minus some shin and hip pain that seems manageable. But I have 87 days and I am already back at a decent mileage level. I don't think the pressure of a race to get your mileage back up and get back into shape is helpful in recovering from an injury though. It's risky.
There is also a 5 week cycle marathon training plan, which is repeated as many times as necessary to build up to the race.
Jay, I know you do not follow Daniels but just wanted to share the concept of the plan with you in case you decide to craft something similar to it.
Week 1 - Sun LR, Mon E + 8 strides, Tue E, Wed T session, Thur R session, Fri E, Sat E +6 strides.
Week 2 - Sun MP, Mon E + 6 strides, Tue E, Wed T session, Thur R session, Fri E, Sat E + 8 strides.
Week 3 - Sun LR, Mon E + 8 strides, Tue E, Wed T session, Thur I session, Fri E, Sat E +6 strides.
Week 4 - Sun MP, Mon E + 6 strides, Tue E, Wed T session, Thur R session, Fri E, Sat E + 8 strides.
Week 5 - Sun LR, Mon E + 8 strides, Tue E, Wed T session, Thur I and R session, Fri E Sat E +8 strides.
There are guidelines for percentages of the quality runs but I will spare you all that mumble jumble except to say the MP runs should be limited to 18 miles and the long runs based on the 25 to 30% rule depending on the volume of weekly mileage yada, yada yada.
My unqualified advice: Honestly, you could probably go out this weekend and run a 3:10. I’m not blowing sunshine, just saying that 7:16, even over 26.2, is not a reach. And really, while you haven’t been running, you kept up pretty well with maintenance by biking an hour or two each day – so it isn’t like you dropped off the calendar completely there. And obviously, you haven’t lost a ton of speed based on the recent shorter races – which, while not at your best, still pretty decent.
So, you have 8 weeks. Were I you, I’d basically ramp up the next few weeks, keeping it all pretty much easy, 40 to 50 to 60 with long runs of 14-16. Then 60, 65, 70 with LRs 18, 20, 20. And 2 week taper with 17, 13. I wouldn’t worry about speed work, or would keep it mostly to MP miles on the long runs plus maybe some a little faster during one weekly run. I would forget intervals.
And I’d peg you at good for a sub 3.
And, if along the way I felt a twinge coming, I’d scrap the whole thing and eat the fee. Or if I got to week 7 and felt unprepared, I’d bail. And if I felt like I was killing myself on the course during the race, I’d bail.
Get through it, recover, and still have a ton of good fall weeks to get back up to speed. The marathon build up will give you a nice 8 week base there to work from to chop away at sub 17 and lower (if that’s something you care about).
I get where LTH is coming from with easing into things. But, a sfx is something different, and the age difference is different.
Anyway, I’m within a few seconds of all your times, so I like to think this is decent advice, but we’re also two very different runners in our approaches, so take it for whatever it’s worth…
Come all you no-hopers, you jokers and roguesWe're on the road to nowhere, let's find out where it goes
My unqualified advice: Honestly, you could probably go out this weekend and run a 3:10. I’m not blowing sunshine, just saying that 7:16, even over 26.2, is not a reach. And really, while you haven’t been running, you kept up pretty well with maintenance by biking an hour or two each day – so it isn’t like you dropped off the calendar completely there. And obviously, you haven’t lost a ton of speed based on the recent shorter races – which, while not at your best, still pretty decent. So, you have 8 weeks. Were I you, I’d basically ramp up the next few weeks, keeping it all pretty much easy, 40 to 50 to 60 with long runs of 14-16. Then 60, 65, 70 with LRs 18, 20, 20. And 2 week taper with 17, 13. I wouldn’t worry about speed work, or would keep it mostly to MP miles on the long runs plus maybe some a little faster during one weekly run. I would forget intervals. And I’d peg you at good for a sub 3. And, if along the way I felt a twinge coming, I’d scrap the whole thing and eat the fee. Or if I got to week 7 and felt unprepared, I’d bail. And if I felt like I was killing myself on the course during the race, I’d bail. Get through it, recover, and still have a ton of good fall weeks to get back up to speed. The marathon build up will give you a nice 8 week base there to work from to chop away at sub 17 and lower (if that’s something you care about). I get where LTH is coming from with easing into things. But, a sfx is something different, and the age difference is different. Anyway, I’m within a few seconds of all your times, so I like to think this is decent advice, but we’re also two very different runners in our approaches, so take it for whatever it’s worth…
Seems reasonable. Back in 2005 I was eye-ballin' my long awaited BQ attempt in the Fall. I knew I had the speed based on my half marathon the previous Fall but I was concerned my last marathon was in 2000, and it was my slowest ever. So I did a dress rehearsal marathon in the Spring, more to calm my nerves than anything.
The reason I bring this up is that I ended up running nine [9] minutes short of my qualifying time and 15 minutes slower than my eventual performance in the Fall. This was w/o a schedule and just a few long runs. I ran very easy the entire time. If you were looking at 2:45, and you haven't lost too much fitness when the race rolls around, a 15 minute cushion shouldn't be a problem.
Thanks guys. This is helpful.