It's interesting to me, that when I was planning out my running schedule for my training for the LA Marathon, I had grand designs to run up to 70 mile weeks. Keep in mind, that when I started this running focus, I was completing around 15 miles/week and started running 6 days/week and upping the weekly total by a maxium of 10% a week. Five months lather, I'm up to around 50 to 55 miles/week, and running became decidedly less fun. Waking up dreading the run and trying to cram in 10 miles before work really sucked. Especially with the recent snowfall my area has received, thoughts of hitting the treadmill for 16.5 miles (which I dutifully completed) really wasn't the cherry on my once joyful sundae of exercise.
Yep, terrible analogy.
Anyways, to maintain my sanity, I dialed back my 55 mile week to ~50 miles and changed my expectations on achieving a 70 mile week. To achieve my long runs, I decided to move miles from my short and mid distance runs to my long runs so that I wouldn't be beating up my body as much. I fully believe that if I had more time, my body would be able to handle 70 mile weeks and recover well enough that I could enjoy running the next week, but as of right now, 50 miles/week seems to be the limit between loving running and unconditional hatred towards it
Let's see how that works out!
By the by, getting back into running after a long weekend of snowboarding is rough. Really rough!
Showing posts with label Consistency. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Consistency. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Something Learned: Being Sick
The last time I took a multi day break from exercising was one month ago. I added 2 extra days off from my usual Monday off.
Exactly 2 months ago, I caught a minor bug and was semi sidelined for 5 days.
Today is the third day in a row that I've felt like a Brillo pad has been taken to my throat.
Granted, while the timing of this illness coinciding with my pre-planned break from training is better than the alternatives, being sick sucks.
To me, being sick means that I lowered my immune system through training far enough to prevent my body from recovering sufficiently. Granted, it is cold/flu season and I do take the subway to work every morning, which is packed to the brim of people who don't know how to cover their mouths when they sneeze, but considering how drained I felt after my 13.5 mile run last Sunday, I'm convinced I went too long without a focus on recovery.
Tangentially, I frequent a few sports related forums form time to time and when a new person asks how they should go about starting to pursue their sport of choice, the most common responses I see are, "Run!" or "Do intervals" or "Join a group ride!" or some other training technique or concept. While I agree that many of the suggestions are valid and will produce results, my advice to beginners hasn't wavered:
"Do whatever you can to maintain consistency"
The interesting thing about this advice is that it means different things to different people. To beginners, it means, "Don't over do it. You'll increase your chances of getting hurt and that will sideline you for days or weeks or more." For Pros, it could mean, "Make sure you get massage 3 times a week so that you can continue to train 20+ hours a week." And for A type amateurs like me, it probably means, "Make sure you work on your recovery and figure out how many hard weeks you can go in a row before your immune system crashes."
And yes, I'm working on listening to my body and as far as I can figure, the number of 6 day workout weeks I can go without needing multiple rest days is between 3 and 3.5 weeks depending on the weekly volume. What I need to figure out/work on is how I'm going to build on that to add in swimming/biking and what I need to do/eat to boost my immune system.
There's just too much to learn that the only thing I can do right now is evaluate each day, one day at a time.
Exactly 2 months ago, I caught a minor bug and was semi sidelined for 5 days.
Today is the third day in a row that I've felt like a Brillo pad has been taken to my throat.
Granted, while the timing of this illness coinciding with my pre-planned break from training is better than the alternatives, being sick sucks.
To me, being sick means that I lowered my immune system through training far enough to prevent my body from recovering sufficiently. Granted, it is cold/flu season and I do take the subway to work every morning, which is packed to the brim of people who don't know how to cover their mouths when they sneeze, but considering how drained I felt after my 13.5 mile run last Sunday, I'm convinced I went too long without a focus on recovery.
Tangentially, I frequent a few sports related forums form time to time and when a new person asks how they should go about starting to pursue their sport of choice, the most common responses I see are, "Run!" or "Do intervals" or "Join a group ride!" or some other training technique or concept. While I agree that many of the suggestions are valid and will produce results, my advice to beginners hasn't wavered:
"Do whatever you can to maintain consistency"
The interesting thing about this advice is that it means different things to different people. To beginners, it means, "Don't over do it. You'll increase your chances of getting hurt and that will sideline you for days or weeks or more." For Pros, it could mean, "Make sure you get massage 3 times a week so that you can continue to train 20+ hours a week." And for A type amateurs like me, it probably means, "Make sure you work on your recovery and figure out how many hard weeks you can go in a row before your immune system crashes."
And yes, I'm working on listening to my body and as far as I can figure, the number of 6 day workout weeks I can go without needing multiple rest days is between 3 and 3.5 weeks depending on the weekly volume. What I need to figure out/work on is how I'm going to build on that to add in swimming/biking and what I need to do/eat to boost my immune system.
There's just too much to learn that the only thing I can do right now is evaluate each day, one day at a time.
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