For those of you who’ve been reading for a while, you watched me run my first 10 miler, my first half marathon and then spend months training for my first marathon. And then the running stopped.
My last real run was on October 23rd. 8 miles.
After that, I was out. My IT band kept me from running very far, no matter how much I wanted to push it. I saw physical therapist after physical therapist. I stretched, I foam rolled, my legs were bruised from my PT sessions. But no improvement. For the last 4 weeks I’ve run a total of 3 miles, broken up into short spurts to work on my form, as recommended by a new physical therapist.
On Saturday I’ll be cheering on friends running the F^3 Half Marathon – the half marathon I am registered for, and wish I could run. However, Saturday also marks 4 weeks from when my doctor said to take a month off, which means it’s time to start running again. I’m praying, however, that my IT band doesn’t keep flaring up, and I can return to running. But I know I can’t just jump back in. I might have kept up cardio workouts with the elliptical, but that doesn’t mean my IT bands will appreciate a sudden 6 miler after no running at all.
So what am I to do? How do I work my way back into running?
Well, I’ve decided to follow a “training plan” to ease my way back into consistent running. My hope is to find a 5K sometime in early March and to go for a PR. That way I can work on running, form and speed, while not over-doing it with mileage.
My physical therapist taught me how to run in a way that will put less stress on my hips. Apparently I have disproportionately long legs compared to my torso, which makes my hips work harder than normal. Along with my form, he told me I should be running faster (after watching me run at several paces), which is fine by me, but going to take some more work!
I’m going to roughly follow Hal Higdon’s Novice 5K program:
It really depends on how I feel. If I feel better than I expected, then I’ll move up to the intermediate plan, which starts out with 3 mile runs. I don’t have a goal race, so I’m really just using this as a guide to keep me from going overboard and hurting myself again.
I realize I might sound optimistic and calm about all of this, but to be honest I had a hard time looking at the novice 5K program, when months ago I was following the novice MARATHON plan. But I’m thinking someone is trying to teach me a little patience… and that running isn’t the most important thing in life.
Have you ever had to start over with something you worked hard on?
Are you training for anything?