Less is More: Recovery Running...Now with More Cycling!

I set out this week to basically make or break my road to recovery by implementing a handcrafted training schedule built around all the previous weeks' semi-successes and full on failures. As noted repeatedly throughout a plethora of posts chronicling the on-again off-again relationship I have with ITBS, coupled with my reliance on the preset Higdon schedules (for which there seems to be one for every level), things just weren't going smoothly post-marathon. I'm Beyond Thunderdome now: Tina Turner is singing sweet-sweet songs, with her heavenly Nichiren Buddhist pipes, promising victory ahead: なんみょほれんげきょ* and so forth...


Go Beyond Thunderdome...


While ridding the Shinjuku Tohei line last week I designed a schedule to fit into my long held vehement anti-injury standpoint. This is a bridge to better tomorrows, so for now, the distances are slight; sometimes frustratingly so. I'm climbing from a low 11 miles per week to an eventual 20 miles at full steam ahead. I feel that hovering around the actively running 20 miles per week mark while not specifically training for anything is a happy compromise: it allows me to randomly jump (the shark) at the chance when a good 5/10k comes along, and it really doesn't take that much time away from other things I need to do. I'm very much of the punctual train of thought that asks the question before departing each station, "if we're not challenging ourselves, then how are we becoming better?", so when I get back into a comfortable base camp, I'm going to revise the schedule to definitely incorporate speed.

Recovery Running (post-marathon)
Mon.	Tues.	Wed.	Thurs.	Fri.	Sat.	Sun.
Rest + Strength	3-5 miles RUN	CT: 1hr. cycling -or-   walking	3-5 miles RUN	Rest + strength	CT: 1hr. cycling -or-   walking	LSD: 5-10 miles RUN

Friday has always been a rest day on every running schedule I've ever followed. Even back when I was going out for runs 6 days a week, Friday was always reserved for respite. So I left that as the default rest day. Monday, as you can see, follows the LSD, and is meant precisely for taking it easy on my knee. 

The cross training days presented here are meant to keep my legs moving while avoiding too much extra stress on my knees. I'm relying on these days to really pick up the slack in an otherwise skimpy schedule. My favorite form of CT is cycling—here in Japan I have my Harlem Globetrotter, and back in the States is the American counterpart, Schwinny Cooper —but a brisk walk always works out well when the cycling option isn't available. Throughout my marathon training schedule, I always wanted to incorporate swimming into my routine, but not having access to a pool makes it a surprisingly hard thing to do. Next winter, I plan on seriously considering a gym membership for those inclement days which should solve the no pool = no swim conundrum.  

Finally, I will also mention that I have light lifting peppered throughout the week under the moniker "strength". I'm going to Hold on Loosely with a .38 special to having MWF being the days I'll most likely engage in the strength training. I'm comfortable with relying on rest days to do so, since the rest is mainly meant for my legs, and lifting stuff doesn't really require much motion in the Southland Tales. Also, I'd never be mistaken as one of the Masters of the Universe; I'm simply not a He-Man. The "strength" referred to here is mainly for tone + endurance, despite my Scottish heritage I'm not going caber tossing anytime soon; well, probably not...

*なんみょほれんげきょ (nam-myoho-renge-kyo) is the Japanese pronunciation of the Lotus Sutra. It translates as "I devote myself to the lotus sutra" and is a main staple in Nichiren Buddhism, which is Miss Turner's type of Buddhism.