Return to running, running plan

Don't over complicated it. Just get out the door and run some. Start with 3-4 days a week. Go for 20 or 30 minutes or whatever feels good.

After a month or so, you'll know what the next steps are.

My one piece of advice coming back, though, is do less than you think you're capable. Keep some miles and seconds in the tank. It'll keep you hungry and healthy.

itdepensd wrote:

Don't over complicated it. Just get out the door and run some. Start with 3-4 days a week. Go for 20 or 30 minutes or whatever feels good.

After a month or so, you'll know what the next steps are.

My one piece of advice coming back, though, is do less than you think you're capable. Keep some miles and seconds in the tank. It'll keep you hungry and healthy.

Good post. The older you are the more it makes sense to do "less than you think you can."

Actually doing "more than you think you can," in distance running makes no sense at all when it

comes to training. (Race goals---yes, think positive. But training goals should be incremental)

waltertompatton wrote:

itdepensd wrote:

Don't over complicated it. Just get out the door and run some. Start with 3-4 days a week. Go for 20 or 30 minutes or whatever feels good.

After a month or so, you'll know what the next steps are.

My one piece of advice coming back, though, is do less than you think you're capable. Keep some miles and seconds in the tank. It'll keep you hungry and healthy.

Good post. The older you are the more it makes sense to do "less than you think you can."

Actually doing "more than you think you can," in distance running makes no sense at all when it

comes to training. (Race goals---yes, think positive. But training goals should be incremental)

Thanks for the compliment. I'm in the midst of my own comeback in my late 30s, and I have to type these words of advice out to other people so that I can really constantly remind myself to follow them as well. It's hard, but when I get in a groove of training at 90 to 95 percent of my capabilities, things really seem to flow.

What I found that worked for me was to jump full throttle into higher volume. During a 4.5 year break from running, I went straight to 70 "effort" mile weeks - running mixed with a lot of supplemental cross training to help the excess weight come off quickly and build a large aerobic base faster. Over time, running began replacing lots of the cross training, but never completely as the keeping the cross training involved help me get over 100 "effort" miles a week in a couple of years.

It may not be optimal and it is more risky injury wise, but like yourself I was fairly competitive in my college years and preferred a faster route to get competitive again rather than the slow conservative approach. My fear was that if I took the "optimal" approach, I'd lose interest quickly in the attempt to get back in shape and quit a couple months in after seeing how far off I still was from prior years.

If you're considering a more aggressive approach to it, I'd be happy to share more what my build up looked like. I suppose the majority of responses will disagree with the approach I took (and rightfully so), but it did work for me.

This is definitely the opposite of what I was saying, but cool to see how it worked for you.

I'm curious about what you mean when you say 70 "effort" miles a week. Would that be like putting the time/effort into your week that you did back when you routinely ran 70 mpw? Or is it like you would run 30-40 mpw but cross train for the "equivalent" of 30-40 miles of running a week, gradually shifting that over?

I just figured out rough equivalents on machines to translate into miles. Using the elliptical, I'd target heart rate and translate that to running miles (roughly 7 mins equaling a running mile). I'd incorporate incline power walking on the treadmill which I found at a 15% grade that doubling the walking distance was close to running equivalent (e.g., 4.5mph felt like 9mph/6:40 running mile pace - although walking at 5mph felt a lot harder than 6 flat running pace!). Lots of long erg sessions too varying in average pace between 1:50-2:10/500m (the concept II tracks meters so I did a one to one match for running).

I did exactly as you mentioned in the beginning: about 40mpw running then 30 equivalent miles on other machines. Eventually I got to a point where I could handle 70mpw running so I kept increasing running mileage and maintained the cross training. A high mileage block for me these days may look something like 80mpw running and 25mpw on the erg.

I liked this approach because it helped establish a good structure early on to get serious and reduce the bad eating/drinking habits. Starting with just 3 or 4 days of training per week would have allowed me to continue partying a bit too much and would have made it easier for me to miss training days more often since that schedule doesn't call for a session every day. Agree that it depends on the individual as to what approach would work best, but this is worth a shot if one tried the more injury safe and steady approach but ended up stopping the comeback attempt after just a couple weeks/months.