Weekend warrior

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

The two best things I do which has helped enormously in avoiding injury is to not run on consecutive days, and to do a proper warm up and cool down before/after each run. It really does make a difference. I'm pretty confident too that compression skins aid recovery after a long or hard run.

Yep, never running on consecutive days has been my mantra for years. But these days it's that or nothing. Oddly, the sore leg feels a little better today, the day after putting 10 miles on it (technically 5 miles on that one and 5 on the other, I suppose). Hopefully it will run off, but otherwise a week off should do it.

And yes, I must go back to stretching, if I don't have the luxury of a rest day.

Do you warm up, stop and stretch before upping the effort? I just make sure the first 5 minutes are at low effort. And likewise, do you finish with low effort? I'm afraid I tend to finish with a sprint.

I don't do much stretching at all. My warm-up and cool-down is simply 15 minutes of brisk walking, which is pretty dull (especially the cool-down) but is far less so than stretching and which has made a world of difference. I do sometimes (well, perhaps quite often) stretch troublesome areas such as calfs and to a lesser extent hamstrings, but I find the risk of overdoing it too great. A brisk walk may not sound like much, but I've found that it makes a huge difference.

[Antonio247]

Pottering along rather nicely here. Got a nice field/woodland 10 mile trail run in this afternoon, definitely the furthest I've run for 2 years and at 90 mins dead a pleasing pace. It also finally brought me up to target for my ongoing goal of averaging a mile a day for the year. But until mid-Feb I only ran 6 miles, so really at the moment I'm closer to two miles a day.

Got a rare Parkrun in last week. Was feeling confident after banking some good miles recently, but the time came in slower than my last visit, last summer. Stands to reason really - thinking about it, I'm now just coming back from effectively an 18 month layoff.

This is all taking a bit of a toll though - intervals and Parkrun on consecutive days was a mistake, and my left hammy/glute is seizing up whenever I sit down for long. It might need a week off to recover - this is all part of the game that I'm getting back into.

I hope you get better soon,MD. I agree it must have been because you've run too fast on two consecutive days. 

Best of luck!

Saludos desde Almería

[marathondan]

Already recovering thanks Antonio! No running now for 4 days so I'll see how it feels by Friday.

[Bierzo Baggie]

Yep, never running on consecutive days has been my mantra for years. But these days it's that or nothing.

Do you warm up, stop and stretch before upping the effort? I just make sure the first 5 minutes are at low effort. And likewise, do you finish with low effort? I'm afraid I tend to finish with a sprint.

I've been in a similar situation for the last few years. If I get 2 runs in they are usually on consecutive days at the weekend. At first it wasn't a problem but over the last couple of years I've become more injury prone ... used to love the carefree sprint at the end too once upon a time.

Congratulations for the 10 miler the other day!

[marathondan]

The left hamstring still feels rather dead after I sit for a while. So all speedwork is off for a week or two. But I got in a lovely 10 miler on Saturday morning. It turns out that if I run across town, pick up the Thames at Maidenhead bridge, follow the river south until the A355 bridge, and then cut back to my final destination of Dedworth school, the distance is within a gnat's ITB of 10 miles. As last week, completed in 90 mins on the button. Loads of runners out, a good few rowers, and plenty of triathletes as I skirted the southern perimeter of Dorney lake. A lovely morning to be on the towpath.

So, in the absence of speedwork, that run was bookended by two shorter efforts of what I suppose count as junk miles / recovery run. Not to worry, they too were very pleasant, and featured an almost complete absence of tarmac.

Now I just need to work out the limit of what's possible in a weekend while remaining injury-free.

[glaconman]

I think as long as your training is 'spiky' then running consectively is ok. This article explains things better than I could:

https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/train...3-plateau/

[marathondan]

Thanks GM, an interesting read. Maybe I need to content myself with one really good quality high effort session per week(end), plus a long one and a recovery run.

[glaconman]

If you're doing 3 runs in a weekend I'd say make 2 easy. The third could be a Long Run or a Hard Session (eg intervals) or a Race. Shame you can't squeeze something in mid-week for balance.

[twittenkitten]

Now I just need to work out the limit of what's possible in a weekend while remaining injury-free.

I'm reading your progress with interest - while I manage to find time to run during the week, so no need to run on consecutive days I am nursing my own injury back to health. I'm prone to not taking proper time to warm up and cool down - partly because it's extra time I need to factor into my running schedule and I'm reluctant to take more time out for it. 

So I'm making an effort to allow time for warm up & cool down; also to listen to my body and tune into my aches and pains rather than just completely ignore them as a rule.  Also interesting article shared by @glaconman - that makes for a good read. Will digest ...

Anyhoo, hope the hamstrings are feeling better and keep going, sounds like you're getting so much from getting out and running again :-) And, selfishly, reading everyone else's updates inspires me to keep dragging myself back to running ...

[marathondan]

Thanks TK. The other problem with fitting it all into the weekend is there's not much margin for error if time is short. The last two weekends have been busy, so the long runs have been canned and I've ended up with a double step-back week. I also curtailed all speed work, for easing of the aching muscles.

This week is half term, so I have time to space my runs out properly. At least that's the theory. With everything feeling good again, I tried 5 miles of intervals this morning, which went well, but it's all about whether there is any residual damage tomorrow.

Having said what I said above, I should of course make tomorrow a rest day. But Monday is daughter 1's 11th birthday (she met a few of you in Brighton a few years back, when she was still in a high chair) so I won't have time to run, and I don't want to get behind...

[marathondan]

Currently got that feeling of dread that occurs when one has just signed up for a marathon. Not parted with the readies yet, but have given my word to the charity. I realised that building from my decent mileage this year so far, I could enter the Richmond marathon and do the lion's share of my training in the school summer holidays. The course looks a cracker (unless you're one of those types that insists on hills).

By a delightful coincidence, it's the same day as MLCMM's Sydney marathon. I fully expect him to put in double my training miles. He's not looking forward to the winter training; meanwhile I've never been through a summer training programme before.

Hopefully I'll go fancy dress again. I believe I read (although I can't find it now) that there is a 5 hour cutoff which, given my previous finish times of around 4:45, plus the late summer weather, will add a bit of jeopardy to the proceedings.

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

What a fantastic race, a (very small) part of which I have run myself, from Kingston to the famous Teddington Lock and back ... glorious running territory. This is going to be so much fun training side by side, in a sense.

Onwards, then!

[El Gordo]

But Monday is daughter 1's 11th birthday (she met a few of you in Brighton a few years back, when she was still in a high chair)

Blimey, how time flies. She was keen to make her presence felt, if I recall correctly.