Giving More Than 10%

Technically, I am posting this on Wednesday morning, but it is still Tuesday back home :)...

Confession time: After I ran the Raleigh marathon in 2010, I stopped working out for a solid three months.  In the back of my head I knew that I was still in great shape, and that my fortieth birthday was four years away.  I had only planned on one marathon a year until 2014 to keep me "limber".  Not surprisingly, that plan did not work out as I had hoped.  

By the time I got to Afghanistan, I hadn't run more than twice in four months.  I hadn't run more than three or four times a month in the six months prior to that, and I certainly hadn't been a consistent runner since 2011.  I had joined the nefarious "3 mile club" – for Navy Physical Readiness Tests, a participant only has to run 1.5 miles.  The PRT is a twice a year event, which means that every sailor must run a minimum of 3 miles a year – if they are running.  I won't go into the politics of stationary bikes or elliptical machines, and I have been at the very bottom of fitness categories, so I won't judge.

The bottom line is, I was concerned that trying to do to much, too fast would end up with me being injured.  Experts say that a person shouldn't try to increase their distance by more than 10% a week.  I was certainly on my way towards following that advice for the first month here.  I started off with a gentle 1.5 mile run, something I knew even a fatbody like me could handle. And that was only after a couple of weeks of walking to and from work and chow – at the time, a not inconsiderate 4 miles or so daily.  

I got a cold about a month in, and that set me back a week, but then I ran a circuit and felt very good.  I had done that route a few times without injury or soreness when I decided to pull out a map and find out how much I had been doing.  I was surprised to find out that I went from roughly 2 miles to over 5.  However, my legs, knees and ankles felt great so I continued to experiment with different runs, taking breathers in between the longer ones.  Within two months I've gotten to 9 miles without serious strain on my body, not even soreness the next day.  After I got up to a half marathon in May (four months in) My left patellar tendon has started to complain a bit, so I made sure to include a short run day (around 10K) and I will definitely make sure to include a rest day.  I'm also looking at knee strengthening exercises, besides just hitting more pavement.  There is one more thing that I've been doing which I'll write more about on Thursday, yoga.