Monday, February 5, 2018

Running With No "Walk Breaks" - Woohoo!

Hello Runners.

Another week down; another week making progress on my injury recovery.

About a month ago - after three months of no running, my PT "allowed" my first "run".  That run was 8 repeats of (30 seconds of running with 30 second walk breaks).  Every other day since then, I've VERY gradually increased the running part of that formula while keeping the walk breaks to 30 seconds.

Tuesday this week I did 3 repeats of 15:00 running with 30 second walk breaks, and then FINALLY on Thursday I ran 40:00 straight.  Two things I noticed after my 40 minute run.  #1 - my injuries held up (some minor "soreness", but stretching/rolling afterward solved it).  #2 - I'm out of shape.  Not complaining at all.  I can actually run now - that's the most important thing - but I hadn't realized how much those short walk breaks were me out aerobically.

Second "achievement" this week.  I ran TWO days in a row (Saturday AND Sunday).  I cut the Saturday run down to 30 minutes, then did 50 minutes on Sunday, for my "long run".

Still stretching and rolling every day, and doing hip and core strength following every run.

Next week's plan is to run Tu / Th / Sa / Su again.  As always, as soon as I feel any setback in the injuries I stop and re-evaluate.  All runs still on the treadmill....the consistent footing and no incline/decline is what I need right now.  Plus, on the treadmill I'm MUCH more likely to STOP as soon as any of the wrong kind of pain pops up.  If I were on the road, I might still try to "run home" no matter how much I had left...I don't trust myself to walk it in if I needed to.

This week I ran about 20 miles on 4 runs.  A long way from my prior 60 miles weeks.  But, also a long way from 0 miles in all of December.

Not out of the woods with my injury yet, but feeling cautiously more confident that I will be soon.

- Onward