In medicine, they say "First, do no harm."
I'm inclined to say that the same is true for running injuries. The goal is, to not do ANYTHING that might delay your return to normal training. Secondarily, you should cross train, only if it isn't further aggravating the injury. Other than that, the only rule of injury-land is, DON'T GET FAT. Your body will already be weak from the time off, the stress of extra weight is possibly the worst thing you can do for your joints OR your comeback.
The truth is though, that most of us do harm, all the time. I had that one thing to remember, and I screwed it up. After two weeks... I'm fat. Real, live, quads-have-lost-all-definition, poke-me-in-the-stomach, Pillsbury Dough Boy Fat. So now I have two goals for this week. Learn to run symmetrically again, and lose 5 pounds. One 65 minute session on the treadmill at a time.
Sunday 01/07: 8.1 miles, 60 minute progression run on the treadmill followed by 5 minutes of obligatory treadmill cooldown. Started at 9:34 min/mile, ended at 6:39. Last 10 minutes were past threshold. Felt good though, ending heartrate 176.
A little discouraged, based on the pacing I followed, my long run type steady state anaerobic turnover point has creeped up to ~7 minute miles... which puts a damper on the whole plan I used to have about running Carlsbad Half in 1:31:52. Maybe next year. Peking duck with the gang, oreo milk shakes with Will. Yum!
Monday 01/08: 7.6 miles, 60 minute easy run on treadmill followed by 5 minutes of cooldown. Started 9 min/mile, 8's through the middle portion, ended with 10 solid minutes of 7:30 pace. Ian/KB came to talk, thankfully, which made some of the minutes go by faster :). Every 1 minute of cooldown the treadmill automatically reverts you back to 13 min/mile pace. Annoying. Seriously.
Felt really, really sore and moderately tired on this run, but gradually improved after 30 minutes. I guess it's been a while. Ankle took a while to warm up, but mostly didn't bother me. Developed a giant blood blister on my heel that burst all over my shoe. Crikey.
Tuesday 01/09: 8.2 miles, same routine but this time on a slight incline, per Kangway's suggestion. It's been 3 days now, and the soreness is unrelenting. Mainly the quads, eesh.
Felt inadequately recovered, so started off thinking maybe another easy run, but ended up getting locked into a cold-war era armament race with the inhabitant of the treadmill to my right. Thankfully they folded after 15 minutes. Victory is mine! Finished with a 15 minute acceleration down to 6:50 pace, felt alright by the end.
Wednesday 01/10: 7.9 miles, base run on treadmill with slight incline. Felt some tweaks today, right quads felt really sore, IT bands tight. On the bright side, my athletic tape/bandaid contraption managed to make it the full hour, so no blood was shed on my shoe.
Feeling bummed out by the realization that while I try to pass some of them off as "progression" runs, all of my training this week has been glorified base miles. I'm probably in for a really ugly collision with reality when I try any true tempo work off of the treadmill. Maybe its the power of suggestion, but it *does* seem to be true that the treadmill differentially taxes the quads vs. the hamstrings. I've been wondering why my quads are so sore, when I obviously haven't done any hill climbing at all.
Thursday 01/11: 8.5 miles, finally, a small breakthrough! Felt pretty solid today--a couple warm up miles, then 7:30's down to 6:35, comfortably, no huffing or puffing. Sure feels good to break that 40 mpw. Unclear what I think about the treadmill miles, but don't care all too much. Frankly this week is about strengthening my left foot and making my heart work for an hour a day instead of sitting on its ass.
Friday 01/12: 7.8 miles, easy 8-9 minute miles on a slight incline--accelerated painfully to ~7 min/miles at the end. Felt pretty worn out, I guess this is a lot of miles all of the sudden. Legs felt really tired and heavy through 30 minutes then gradually got better.
Saturday 01/13: taking some very much needed R & R. Ankle feels pretty solid, I've been taking advil and wearing the Ian Magic Sock every day and there's been dramatic improvement. I think I'll be ready for a real run tomorrow!
Treadmill Miles: 48.1 miles
There's probably some conversion factor between treadmill miles and running miles. I have no idea though, so for now it will have to stay.
7 comments:
I still think the conversion factor is 1: the only difference is wind resistance, which is pretty much negligible.
I wouldn't worry about conversion factors on the treadmills too much. Jack Daniels has a treadmill conversion table if you ever want to see it. Basically the idea is the energy demands are lower on a treadmill, but you can compensate by adding a slight grade to your treadmill. In either case, it's almost identical except that you have an underemphasis on the back-end mechanics (as in, your glutes/hamstrings don't have to propel your body forward as much.) Also, I doubt you're fat.
oh, and if you want to ride, we should. we can get katherine and ian and all sorts of people in on it.
Kangway - Do you remember why he says your hamstrings have to work less? Daniels is full of BS.
Just think about the stride. As you plant your foot instead of having to pull your leg back the treadmill belt pulls your leg back. You can more passively move your legs. Daniels doesn't specifically state that. I've just read that as a huge criticism of the Frappier Acceleration system (if you've ever seen those advertised, where you do a lot of sprinting on high grade treadmills). From what I can tell, most of Daniels data comes from actual tests as he says, from VO2, HR, and blood lactate levels.
In any case, this just sort of seems consistent with my experience. Back home we had this treadmill which could go up to 16.0 mph. I ran on it for a minute and I felt like I was running a sub 60 400m in terms of moving my legs forward, but afterwards I didn't really feel the burn I usually do in the back of my legs. So that's sort of just an observation...
I don't know if it's consistent with your experience at all. Does treadmill running aggravate your hamstring more than regular running?
"the treadmill belt pulls back your leg"
frosh you fail Ph 1.
sure, the treadmill belt pulls back your leg. but when you run on solid ground, the ground pulls back your leg just the same. all that matters is the relative motion between you and the medium you are running on. the two situations are identical, unless the belt changes speeds. this is called "galilean relativity" and i'm pretty sure you ought to know that by now.
in practice, it's possible that treadmill running stresses muscles differently because of lack of air resistance, differences in the running surface, acceleration of the belt, different feedback information, or other factors i'm missing. but it is not clear a priori that any of these factors are important in practice, or what their effect on patterns of muscle activation would be
yeah, I never went to that class.
here's a good article, with references and all:
http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/treadmill.html
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