Good morning!
I'm really tired of saying, thinking, and
writing about my most recent injury…Achilles tendonitis. If you follow my blog on a daily basis,
I’m sure you are too. Starting Wednesday, I decided to give
myself a rest from running and take at least five days off to see how it
feels. I also scheduled a doctor
appointment for this coming Tuesday with the same orthopedic surgeon who diagnosed my IT
band issues back in February. I want
this baby gone and healed ASAP.
Can you tell I’m impatient? That I'm insanely addicted to this sport, once again?
So, as I was thinking about my little deviation from
running, I began to wonder about fitness level loss. Through research, I found a plethora of articles on this
subject and I included a few good websites that contain this exact
information.
First, some of the articles I found are written by, or
cited advice of the infamous coach, Dr. Jack Daniels. I actually had the
pleasure of meeting Coach Daniels several times in back college while competing
at the Division III national level.
At the time, he headed SUNY Cortland's program, where he
perennially had athletes attend the national meets both in cross-country and
track.
Coach Daniels wrote an article titled 7 Tips for Taking Time Off.
Here, he recommends logging injuries in a journal by including when and how the injury
began, therapies used, and how long it took to heal. His theory is that a log will help runners handle similar
injuries in the future.
Daniels suggests planning solid breaks from
running. Whether it is a break for
a long period of time or shorter ones broken apart throughout the year, the
body needs rest…injury or no injury.
This concept reminds me of the breaks we used to have in high school or
college. Since most distance
runners run and compete year-round, it is common to take a week off after each
season to regroup, as well as prepare for the start of
the next season.
I also found a good blog post by Coach Joe English of Portland,
Oregon, where he is the managing editor for Running Advice and News. He included a snapshot from Daniels' book that outlined approximately how much cardiovascular fitness one would lose
from down time. These are the
given sample values:
Up to 5 days — no loss
7 days off — 0.6%
14 days off — 2.7%
21 days off — 4.8%
28 days off (one month) — 6.9%
56 days (two months) — 15.3%
Judging from these numbers, I think I will be fine. It’s funny, as most of you are aware,
runners work so hard to gain strength and lower times, so losing any of
what was built is a disappointment and a downer.
An article titled Losing Running Fitness on
the Runner’s Connect website stated that there is “little reduction in VO2max in a well-trained runner for the
first ten days of non-activity.”
Well-trained means the runner trained consistently for a four to six
month time period. They put together a little chart that outlined reductions
in fitness levels over a period of time using a 20 minute 5k runner as a
guide. Take a look:
To me, this is all very interesting, as well as
enlightening. Most runners are
dedicated creatures so any time off can seem like it’s the end of the
world. Apparently not! As always, the purpose of my blog is to share my
experiences with you…so if any of this information can help ease the pain of
not running, I will be a happy girl.
Make it a great Friday!
Tracy
PS. In the next few days, I {hope} to attempt a swimming workout given to me by Jesse. This {in itself} should be hilarious since I haven't been in a pool to swim actual laps in probably over two decades! :)
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