Doug Sutherland
Hi coach,
Happy New Year! Hope 2020 is great for you.
I'm thrilled to be back on the team. Life took me away from sports for a couple years. I rejoined EN a few weeks ago and started with a durability plan, but developed plantar fasciitis fairly impressively. I put myself in run jail 12/11 and have only biked, skied and cross trained since then. Foot feels fine now, zero pain, but I haven't run a step yet.
I am registered for the Vancouver BC Marathon 5/3 and IMAZ. I am eyeing the new Washington 70.3 as well in September 20. I do not plan to make Vancouver "racey" - I just want to get through it and have fun with it and zero in my body comp before building for IMAZ. It will be my first stand alone marathon. I also plan to do 10-15 ski days this winter as cross training.
So, I am thinking the balanced marathon plan given the foot. That would start up 1/13/2020 which gives me about 10-11 days to do a mini durability plan to progress from walk/jog/run and do my silly foot exercises/stretches. Assuming I do not need to dial back due to pain, I am curious if you agree?
Thank you,
DS
Comments
The balance plan sounds great, and hopefully the rest combined with some other non-running aerobic activity as your body a little more prepared to handle the training mode.
In addition to choosing a more diversified program, it’s important for you to also take a look at what’s in the room causes could be of the issue. Are your running shoes old? Are they zeroed drop and putting too much stress on your tendons? Or are you just running on too hilly terrain instead of flat stuff? Let me know.
If you don’t have one, I recommend you get one of those night splints that you can wear when you sleep. I will periodically use this when I return to running, even after a few weeks of lay off, as the starting process always brings with it some nagging issues.
~ Coach P
I was running in old shoes. I got a new pair of Brooks Gylercin. Exercises, night splint, yes. I was running uphill because I live in a place where every direction out of my house is uphill. So I have been doing mostly treadmill. I also believe this current situation is related to an injury I sustained in the build for IMC in 2016.
That said, last week I have done 3 runs as 2.8mi, 3.2 mil, 6.2 mi. My foot was pretty sore after the 10k and the next morning, but normal now, pain free. Do you have mileage recommendations this week, which is week 1 of the plan? I am nervous about 5, 6, 8 at this point.
Doug, from the looks of your Final Surge account you are rolling along. Let's get you to "sit" at 20 to 22 miles for the weeks of 1/27 and 2/4 just to make sure your legs are absorbing the work...this will be a nice intentional plateau.
Thanks for changing up the shoes, the idea here is to get you healthy enough that you can handle the workload of running without the cost associated with "restarting" running.
How are you feeling?
~ Coach P
I am feeling good! The heel is sore for about a day after a run, but typically gone. the next day. Still doing all of the things to actively manage it. The legs are holding up better than I would have expected. I do normatec after the long runs. The current arrangement of 3 runs/weeks is ideal for me every other week (and that is it, can't add bike, etc, those weeks), but if it would be beneficial, I could do 4 or 5 runs (or other wko) the alternate weeks without life stress limitations.
I like the idea of alternating weeks. But we would need to add those runs in microdoses. Effectively I would take the total weekly mileage and divide it by five instead of three for at least the first week. How does that sound?
Sounds reasonable. So for now, will stay at 20-22 this week and next, then use the predicted milage using Final Surge and divid accordingly(?)
@Douglas Sutherland Yes, that's perfect. Here's a look at this week's training from the Balanced plan:
As you can't see in the bottom right hand portion of the image, which exists in every training week, the total run mileage. In this case we have 27 miles lined up for you this week. Divided by five we can round it and call it about five individual 5 mile runs.
Monday is already 5 miles as is Friday. This means we need to cut the Thursday session down to 5 miles and break the Sunday session into two runs. I would suggest that you run Monday and Tuesday of this week, Wednesday off Thursday Friday off then split the weekend run on Saturday and Sunday is 5 miles. That way you only have two Places where you are running on back to back days.
In order to cut down the Thursday run, I would recommend that you do 1 mile of warm-up and then as much running is close to your goal marathon pace as you are able to given the situation with your health. If required you could divide that 6 miles into 23 mile blocks and attach them to part of the Monday run and part of the Thursday run.
Mon - 5 as 2 easy, 3 @ MP
Tues - 5 easy
Wed - Xtrain / Rest
Thu - 5 as 2 easy, 3 @ MP
Fri - Xtrain / Rest
Sat - Marathon Long Run p1 of 2
Sun - Marathon Long Run p2 of 2
Make sense?
~ Coach P
roger that. I’m in Jackson hole this week, lots of xtraining going on😊
Pictures to ENLive or it didn't happen 🤣
https://www.facebook.com/groups/ENLIVE/