Today I want to talk for a bit about training setbacks. We've all experienced times in our training schedules when it's just not physically possible to train. For me, I'm at the beginning of week 3 of my 10 week training schedule for a half marathon I'm running on March 13th. Unfortunately, the last two weeks have been lost to a bout with bronchitis, and I'm feeling like I'm WAYYYY behind where I wanted to be right now.
So how do we deal with training interruptions and setbacks? The first thing you should do is establish whether you should even race your goal marathon at all. Every training setback is unique in terms of timing, severity, impact and so on, so there’s no simple way to determine the "perfect" compromise. But the following tips will help you evaluate your situation and allow you to make the most of the training you’ve done.
Ask the Hard Questions:
How much time have you missed? As a general guideline, if you’ve lost three or more consecutive weeks of training and are within two months of game day, scale back your expectations or, if possible, delay your marathon by at least the amount of time you missed. If you’ve been out one to two weeks, enjoyed a consistent block of training before the layoff, have at least four weeks before your race, and are 100 percent healthy, you can probably shoot for your original goal.
Have you been injured or "merely" ill? If it’s the former, hopefully you’ve been maintaining fitness via cross-training, but you risk re-injuring yourself by diving back into regular running. If it’s the latter, your muscles and joints are presumably in good shape, but your ailment will have weakened you to some extent. If you’ve become friends with the elliptical trainer or the pool during your hiatus and a few days back on the road suggest that your body is ready for the rigors of marathon training again, you can probably return to your planned schedule of workouts and use these to determine whether your original marathon goal is still feasible. If, on the other hand, you’ve been knocked out by a severe cold, you’ll need a couple weeks of cautious rebuilding before you can crank your training back to its pre-malaise levels.
What was your pre-layoff fitness level and how was it reached? If you’ve been running consistently for years, all else being equal, your fitness won’t erode as quickly as it will if you’re relatively new or have had other recent setbacks. The more consistent you’ve been leading into a break, the more "savings" you have to draw on, within reasonable limits.
How experienced are you? No cheating. If the answer is "not very," just getting yourself to the starting line healthy is your best bet, with "must-do" time goals tabled until another day. If you’ve done numerous marathons and have a realistic sense of how your overall preparation relates to the effort you can expect to put forth in a race, then it’s worth taking a close look at your schedule and figuring out how you can make things work in your favor despite possibly having to abandon a crack at your dream time.
So, what's my answer? For me, I've missed the first two weeks of a 10-week program that will ready me for my very first half-marathon. I still have 8 weeks to train. My illness is such that I am still not able to return to a full training schedule, as my chest is still congested, but I am able to resume light workouts on the eliptical machine. I will continue training and re-evaluate my readiness in the next few weeks.
Stay tuned....
Yours in Health!
Tommy
8 Weeks to Go:
Wednesday - light run/fast walk of 3 miles (including 1 mile climb of 300 vertical feet)
Thursday - light run/fast walk of 3 miles (including 1 mile climb of 300 vertical feet)
Saturday - light run of 5 miles (depending on how I feel)
Next Week:
Monday - Eliptical 6 miles (around 1 hour and 15 minutes)
Tuesday - Eliptical 5 miles (around 1 hour)
Thursday - light run of 5 miles
Saturday - 7 mile run with climb of 300 vertical feet starting at 2 mile mark
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