RunningAHEAD - Topic: Recovery/fitness loss balance

Mvitale24

posted: 5/5/2008 at 3:01 PM

I trained though a moderate case of PF for a recent half marathon. After the race, I decided to take a few days off to let my foot and the rest of my body fully heal. Today is day 5 and I feel 90%. My question is in regards to off days and the loss of fitness. My original plan was to take 2 weeks off before I started to put the miles back on. That was quickly changed to just 1 week off and new after 5 days I'm crawling the walls. How will taking a week off from running impact my fitness and how long after I resume running to I get it back?

Bonkin

posted: 5/5/2008 at 4:02 PM

Missing a week should have minimal impact on you, if any.

When it’s all said and done, will you have said more than you’ve done?

Marcus L S

The Greatest of All Time

posted: 5/5/2008 at 5:28 PM

Agree with Bonkin. Your legs will probably feel a bit sluggish and/or heavy but you have lost little fitness if any.

all you touch and all you see, is all your life will ever be

Obesity is a disease. Yes, a disease where nothing tastes bad...except salads.

Tchuck

SMART Approach

posted: 5/5/2008 at 11:16 PM

5 days probably not a big deal. It is when you start getting past 1 week of no activity where it really starts to drop. i.e. if you take 2-3 weeks totally off it may take 4-6 weeks to get your fitness back.

Run Coach. Recovery Coach. Founder of SMART Approach Training, Coaching & Recovery

Structured Marathon Adaptive Recovery Training

Safe Muscle Activation Recovery Technique

www.smartapproachtraining.com

NateFromRI

posted: 5/6/2008 at 8:15 AM

A bit of a threadjack: Has anyone found that crosstraining such as biking helps mitigate the loss of conditioning during time off? I'm sure it must help keep the cardio in shape, but is it too different to really help?

-------------------------------------
5K - 18:25 - 3/19/11
10K - 39:38 - 12/13/09
1/2 - 1:29:38 - 5/30/10
Full - 3:45:40 - 5/27/07

Tchuck

SMART Approach

posted: 5/6/2008 at 5:33 PM

It helps keep you fit but I have found if I don't run 2 weeks (even if doing something else), it takes me 4 weeks to get my running fitness back to what it was. This will vary person to person.

Run Coach. Recovery Coach. Founder of SMART Approach Training, Coaching & Recovery

Structured Marathon Adaptive Recovery Training

Safe Muscle Activation Recovery Technique

www.smartapproachtraining.com

Marcus L S

The Greatest of All Time

posted: 5/7/2008 at 9:55 AM

I will let you know this weekend. I am taking M-F off to rehab my knees (especially the right) but am cross-training 2 X a day. FWIW, both Daniels and Pftitzinger believe anything up to 5 days off results in no loss of fitness. But I know I will be sluggish the first few runs back. Twice last week I took two days off and both times the next run felt a little on the crappy side. Pace and HR were ok, but something didn't feel right.

all you touch and all you see, is all your life will ever be

Obesity is a disease. Yes, a disease where nothing tastes bad...except salads.

EnjoyTheRide

Future running partner.

posted: 5/15/2008 at 10:13 AM

I am currently doing the same thing. I've been running since early February w/o a break and training to peak for an 8k that ran with success on May 3rd. My intention is to train for my first and possibly second marathon this fall. I figure that I will be training consistently for about 6 months, while ramping up my mileage to knew levels and running 6 days/week to accomplish my goals. I have read from well known/respected sourses that taking a break about every 6 months is actually a very good thing and even outways the temporary loss in conditioning. The consistent recommendation, especially after training hard is about 2 weeks after your final peak race and After hard training the body and mind can use a recharge. I've taken a week and half off and I am sooooo ready to start running again.

Berner

posted: 5/15/2008 at 10:22 AM
modified: 5/15/2008 at 10:22 AM

Quote from NateFromRI on 5/6/2008 at 8:15 AM:

A bit of a threadjack: Has anyone found that crosstraining such as biking helps mitigate the loss of conditioning during time off? I'm sure it must help keep the cardio in shape, but is it too different to really help?

Daniels is pretty specific that aggressive cross-training does mitigate some of the conditioning loss. His book even includes two charts to calculate the loss of fitness resulting from a running layoff: one with no cross training, and one with. The difference between the two is relatively small with a short layoff, but becomes more significant for longer periods.

How To Run a Marathon: Step 1 - start running. There is no Step 2.

AaronC

I run for Fried Chicken!

posted: 5/15/2008 at 5:34 PM

For what it's worth, I recently took 2 weeks off from running. One week because I just didn't have time and the 2nd week because I was on vacation. I came back and got right back into it. My first couple of runs back felt a little bit sluggish but I was back into it by the 3rd or 4th run. I don't feel like I lost any fitness from it.

Recovery/fitness loss balance (Read 973 times)