Starting From Square One

Take a long hiatus from running and want to get back to it?

Listen in as Coach Hayley explains the steps you need to take to stay healthy and build back fitness!


Audio Transcript

Coach Hayley: Hey everyone. I hope you are having a great day and thanks for tuning in to the show. We’d love to help you guys improve as runners so if you have a question, don’t hesitate to submit it at runnersconnect.net/daily.

Today we have a great question from Heather.

Heather: I’ve been a runner since I was 13. I’m almost 13 now. I’m currently at such a low level of fitness I haven’t seen since shortly after I started running as a teenager.

How do you handle it, especially mentally, when you’re trying to rebuild back into being a runner?

Hayley: Heather, that’s a great question and I’m sure that many runners can relate to that struggle myself included.

First, make sure you are training at your current fitness level rather than what your fitness level used to be.

It’s so easy to try and strive for times and paces that you used to achieve, but there are several reasons why this doesn’t work.

You’ll be pushing too hard for where you are at. Your easy runs won’t be easy, and your tempo workouts will be too hard.

Not only does that put you in increased risk of injury and overtraining, it also means that you likely won’t progress as quickly because you weren’t working out the right paces for you.

Workouts like easy runs, steady runs, and tempo runs, are designed to have specific benefits. By running them at their own paces or the wrong paces for your current fitness levels, you won’t get the specific benefits.

For example, tempo runs are designed to gradually improve your aerobic threshold. One of the best ways to improve your times, over distances, from five kilometers to the half marathon is to run around the pace that it’s at.

If you’re running too quickly or pushing too hard, you won’t be working at the optimal level to do this.

If you do your running to set paces, make sure these are calculated based on your current fitness.

Use race times that represent where you’re at now rather than your P.R.’s. If you don’t have any recent races, you can use your effort level to calibrate your paces.

Try running by feel for your workouts for the next couple of weeks, looking at the watch afterwards and see what your pace has come out as. This is particularly useful at this stage as hopefully you’ll improve and need to recalibrate quickly.

Rebuild slowly and get back to fitness gradually.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of ramping up the mileage too quickly, if you feel that you are almost as fit as you used to be. This can lead to overtraining and injury setting you back even further.

Make sure that you are cautious with any mileage increases. A good training plan is useful for this.

Increasing gradually is important if you’re reaching new mileages that you haven’t previously hit for a while.

It’s also easy to fall into the trap of adding too many hard workouts in an effort to rush back to where you were. Normally I’d advice sticking to no more than two hard work outs per week if rebuilding fitness.

The rest of your mileage, should be easy running.

Mentally, it can be so tough to look at your watch and realize you’re so much slower than you used to trust me.

I’ve had this situation in the last couple of years and many times before that. I have had surgery on my ankle six years ago and three months out of running.

When I came back to running, I couldn’t run anywhere near the paces I used to and it was depressing to think about workouts I used to run. My answer to that, I tried not to.

I found it helpful to wipe the slate clean where my P.R.’s were concerned. I had my pre-surgery P.R.’s and my post-surgery P.R.’s.

I didn’t compare myself to what I used to be able to do, but I try not to anyway. It’s easier said than done I know.

Instead I compare myself to when I had just come out of surgery. Rather than thinking “Wow eight miles and it felt so hard about pace, I think “Wow four weeks ago I was on crutches and now I’ve just run eight miles. Hopefully, that gives you some ideas of how you can put that into practice too.

Another good mental tip is to think about what you’re better at now. You might not be as fast as you used to be now, but perhaps there are things that you’re better at now.

After my ankle surgery I knew I wasn’t as quick as before, but I was better at doing my strength work, I was mentally tougher, and better at pushing myself in the tough workouts.

Perhaps you can think of some areas that you’re better at now and give yourself a pat on the back for being better at those things.

One thing I would say is race when you are ready, not when you think you should or when a friend tells you to.

It took me a long time to race again after my surgery and my longest layoff. I waited until I was ready. If you don’t feel like racing at your current level, you absolutely don’t have to.

If something that appeals to you, there’s no need to wait until you’re back to full fitness. You could race on something that focuses less on time like a trail race or even an ultra-race.

When I started back after my lay off, I chose cross country. I couldn’t tell how much slower I was than before and I could just blame the mud.

On a subtler level, I’ve also been struggling to run times I previously could for the last couple of years, for several reasons.

I recently competed in a marathon that was different from my usual marathons. It was super hilly and some off road. My previous marathons have all been completely flat and on good solid road.

By doing this, I was able to just focus on racing on my own effort level rather than thinking about how much slower my race pace was.

In the training for this marathon, I also included different workouts ones that I hadn’t completed before. This stopped me from falling into the comparison trap.

I also run different places. Some hilly or off road. It again stopped me putting the focus on time and pace.

Another good tip is to stop looking at your pace or taking note of it. I actually take of my Garmin for a lot of my runs at the moment. I’m now just getting back into training after my post marathon recovery and I know I’ve lost some fitness.

I have run by effort level, in my last few runs, rather than focusing on what pace I’m running. I mark out my routes on a mapping tool on the computer or use a route that I know how long it is or just run by time and estimate my mileage.

Honestly, you don’t need your Garmin and you can switch your mind on to enjoying the run in getting the effort level right rather than thinking about how much slower you feel.

Finally, a try to make runs fun and find some added purpose in my runs.

This could mean pacing a fellow runner at a race or it might mean going out for a run while I need to do some navigation whatever takes my mind of the pace I’m running but still hoping that the building up.

Thanks for that question Heather. That’s something that I’m sure can help so many people. If those of you listening have a question if your own that you’d like myself or one of our Runners Connect coaches to answer, head over to runnerconnect.net/daily and click the record button to send your question over.

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