How to recover when your training has derailed
From someone whose training is off said rails
Welcome to an honest reflection of someone who grossly underestimated the contingencies of life, which have now come to fruition. Many semi-major life events have happened in the last couple of weeks (including the passing of our sweet old doggie, Claude).
My marathon is less than a month away and thanks to life doing her thing, I’m on the heels of two weeks without more than a couple of short runs and one week of essentially no exercise altogether. If this were any other time in my life, I’d roll with it and not worry about a break in my schedule. However, my training schedule is closing in on peak training volume and I’d be lying if I wasn’t slightly nervous about how this will affect me on race day.
As someone who has been in this position before (although not while training for a distance I haven’t run), I’ve tried a few strategies that have been helpful. So, I thought I’d share them with you.
Have the existential crisis & feel the feels. Whatever the self-help, therapists, and life coach gurus have ever said about naming it, claiming it, and then moving on from it: do that. While I’m not one of these kinds of professionals, there is validity in acknowledging the emotional weight of losing your momentum, feeling like you’ve let yourself down (which you haven’t), and, frankly, just being frustrated by the whole thing.
Show yourself kindness. The second part to naming your cavalcade of emotions is then responding with kindness, gratitude, and sincerity. The diatribe from your inner voice is going to want to rage against you and your alleged shortcomings. Start to silence your inner critic in a way that works for you: being in nature, journaling, mindfulness, boxing (?) - you get the idea.
While you may not be into flowery self-talk (me either), you can respond practically with thoughtful truths:
“If I had a friend in the same position, I’d tell them they were doing the best they could.”
“In the scheme of life, this is a bump in the road.”
“You’ve put in so much work prior to this point that your body will still respond to the training you’ve logged.”
Do the next right thing… which doesn’t mean going on a long run or attempting some other monumental feat of movement. If you set out to make up for lost time, end up getting fatigued and call it quits early, you’ll be back in the same boat. This is also a valid way to sustain an injury and end up out of the race altogether.
In my current scenario, it looks like a few short runs a few days in a row to get some easy wins. I’ve been back to teaching my group fitness classes this week and have felt good about returning to that training volume (cardio + lifting + mobility). And, while we’re honest, it’s not the aerobic part of the marathon I’m worried about. It’s the potential of my toenails falling off at mile 15, cramps at mile 17, patellar tendonitis at mile 20, and
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