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Monday, August 3, 2015

Drowning in hot lava

I've just discovered that I don't have to train for something all the time.
And since I'm not, and since it's about a billion degrees out and churning out my morning 3 or 5 miles feels like drowning in hot lava, I've been taking a break.
Either no running, short running, or nothing at all for a few weeks, then I'll gear up to get ready for the fall (fall should be here sometime in late November...).
Now that my hips are all old and decrepit, I think I have to be pretty choosy about races and miles and training plans. In the interest of keeping my hips as long as possible, I'm trying out a new strategy: breaks after races. After four on the fourth, I realized that I was just sweating and plowing through humid air in the morning, and with no real goal. So I backed off for awhile. I am sometimes too lazy to go to the gym, so I did a few short runs on those days, but otherwise I've spent the last few weeks doing strength and cross-training.
If this goes well, then in the future I'll maybe intersperse training for a specific race with periods of non-running cross training to reduce the wear and tear on my hips. But that's just speculation for now: I might find out that it's hard to ramp back up, or that it makes me MORE injury prone. So we shall see over the next few weeks. It's an experiment!

5 comments:

  1. I hear you. I have been on the injury roller coaster for about 2-1/2 years now. Seems that I've not been able to go more than 4-5 months without something sidelining me for a good 6-8 weeks, often times happening right *before* a goal race. (My marathon PR is from January 2013. Sigh.) After my most recent injury (May), I decided that I was going to get healthy and then ramp up VERRRRRRRY slowly, additionally mixing in cross-training (swimming, spin class, strengthening exercises + classes like Bodypump) and some trail running (once a week). It's been GREAT so far. And the short races here have been really nice. I think your plan sounds perfect, especially for the summer months in NOLA when truly, it's all about survival.

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  2. When the going gets hot, the hot go swimming. ;)
    Hope your hips are holding up!

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  3. I think it makes sense to back off on training when you aren't training for a specific race. Especially when it's so ridiculously hot and humid in NOLA! I tend to focus a lot on running from April/May - October and then I take a break and don't run all that much from Oct - April because I just don't love running enough to run in bitterly cold temps. It is hard to come back after a break but it's also nice to focus on something different.

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  4. If you're going to have down time then the humid months are definitely the time to do it. There's nothing worse than flogging yourself for no real purpose so enjoy your off-season.

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  5. Seriously. If it was as hot here in the summer as it is there, I predict I would NOT be for-realsies training in the summer, like, ever.

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