This was originally intended to be a blog post about a running season ending and about how to do Recover, Downtime and Maintenance Phase properly. It was going to be a quick post from my (Erin)’s coaching files. Instead, it’s had grown into a cool and unique team piece. This is one of the wonderful aspects of being a part of Team Love Training More, the potential for the creation of a team masterpiece. Instead of just coaching notes, you’ll now find running wisdom from a cumulative 85 (!!) years of running experience to call upon when your running isn’t going smoothly.
The Coach Notes first:
When a goal race is completed, your running season ends.
After crossing the finish line, we suggest a range of Down Time that includes some days of rest with no running at all and some days of no running but easy cross training and strength added back in. The range of days depends on the distance of the goal race and on the individual runner. The body and mind have worked very hard for you and they need to be rewarded with recovery.
When these “prescribed downtime days” are over, we take it day by day after that because there’s a chance that recovery can be delayed beyond that. The goal is to feel recovered both mentally and physically and get to that point where you miss the road and look forward to getting back out there.
When Down Time is over, we enter a Maintenance Phase. In this phase, the goal is to sustain the runner’s current level of fitness by training at a reduced level because it’s possible to maintain that fitness, even for several months. The key is finding the minimum level of training that prevents you from losing any of your hard-earned physiological adaptations; yet, also allows you rest and recovery (physically and mentally) from higher mileage. This phase lasts until the next exciting goal declares itself and we are 12-16 weeks out from that goal.
At Love Training More, what Maintenance precisely looks like becomes pretty individual. It usually involves range for easy and long runs and shorter and more fun workouts. It’s a time when the schedule is less demanding and rigid.
For some our runners, this actually becomes a time to be away from running, workouts and schedules. A runner might find themselves running when the road calls. Or they might find themself in the gym more. Or walking, hiking, swimming or doing some exercise that is all the way different.
As coaches, we really encourage doing recovery as the training and we mean both physically and emotionally. You can’t do your future run training when you are burnt out emotionally or physically. Sometimes a runner needs to take a moment or a week or month to reset if they are flirting with either kind of burnout. We want them to take that time. They won’t lose any fitness that they can’t easily get back. On the flip side, they will lose more down the road, in the months ahead when they want to be training consistently, if they don’t recover from their burnout. So we try to do it right.
When you can’t do it the way that you want to:
Sometimes “doing it right” isn’t an athlete/coach choice: the nature of Maintenance Phase gets imposed on us by our body. This isn’t ideal and it can really suck. In this scenario, we often have to work harder to do it right.
This blog post was inspired by a coaching conversation with a Love Training More athlete with a body that is dictating her Maintenance Phase. My own body is also dictating my Maintenance Phase and not in a way that I would choose.
This athlete and I agreed on a few things when you are in that spot where you are still running easy but not the way you wish to be. This is that spot when things aren’t going smoothly.
We talked about how there is so much community and support in our wide community for accomplishments. Maybe there is less “community” during injury. Maybe a runner feels alone and like everyone else is soaring but them. I suspect that this is because we hold up our accomplishments more readily than we do our injuries.
My Love Training More runner feels alone. Yet, I am in the very same spot that she is in. She is not alone.
My spot:
My pelvic floor injury is now chronic. It’s been declared that surgery will not improve things more than this so this is just the way that I am. By the time I cross the finish line of my season’s goal race, it’s usually flared. The two week downtime of rest alone is no longer enough to get me back to baseline. It needs rest plus osteopathic treatment plus easy runs only for awhile. My own Road Hammer Coach is asking me to do this right. Not to push until I feel healed and painfree. I probably only ever get to 95% now. I am working on getting to 95%.
While I am doing this easy run phase, sure, I am looking at my Road Hammer teammates, some of whom are back running fast 7 days after their goal races. But I am not them. I know that. Still, I often get in this place where I am looking at race photos and I want to be that fierce Erin runner who kicks ass in races. I love that Erin. And I want to be her NOW. I feel very far away from that girl.
That’s my heart talking.
And here is what I do to deal with this spot.
I have been running for 22 years. My brain is wise and I have to listen to it.
Because my brain knows that I am still that girl, I’m just that girl going different things that are as important as nailing workouts and running big long runs. My brain also know that we can’t sustain that fit and fierce Erin all year long. It’s not sustainable for my body, mind or real life. Ass kicking Erin can only be sustained for about 3 weeks per training cycle when training has peaked.
So I must remind my heart of that.
I am still that girl. I am just doing different training things and those different things are so important if I want to be that Erin in the spring when I toe the line at whatever goal race I choose.
So our Love Training More athlete and I, we talk about this and now we are less alone.
Then we have a larger conversation on our private Love Training More page and now no one is alone.
Here are a few excerpts of our Love Training More Conversation, creating a lovely bank of wise advice from a cumulative 85 years of running:
Love Your Body, Shelley, running 12 years: I know we share our successes on FB, Insta and other social media venue – and so we should! We’re less inclined to post about injuries but let’s be honest, we’re runners and we have injuries. Period! They suck. Period! My passion for running continues. I’m happy to keep myself on the road in whatever way that presents. I love my old(er) body. She’s done so much for me, taken me so many places, and logged so many miles. I run! I am a runner!
“Ditch the Tunes and Get in Tune.” Meghan, running 17 years: It’s hard to watch people logging the kilometers and feeling you ‘can’t’. Whether you took a break from running, you had an injury, a baby, or anything! What works for me: disconnect and take off the watch, forget the time and kilometers and especially the pace. Take the time on the road or trail for you and reconnect to running. Ditch the tunes and get in tune – I like listening to my feet and breath (even when I’m so out of breath!). Sometimes it’s one run to reconnect, sometimes it’s a few. I walk when I feel I like it. I slow down to catch that red light or I sprint to catch the green. Even though some days I feel like everyone is running away with their successes, these disconnected runs remind me we are such a supportive community for all things! And we all love to run
Reexamine your context/Celebrate the Journey, Doreen, running 8 years: I believe it is so important to step back and be realistic and to take a good look at context. We’re injured because we’re badass athletes who are out there pushing our limits whatever they are. We get out there when we can, in whatever weather conditions, during the earliest & latest hours (because life is crazy busy) and we train. We cringe at the word ‘jog’… because that is NOT what we do even during our down runs. We are runners and there are so many people out there who don’t get it. I am REALLY old(er) (sorry….but I’ve got you all on that one 😂) and the number of weird blank looks I get from my peers are priceless. I guess the point I’m getting at it that we need to give ourselves a break and not feel that missed goals, injuries, sub-par performances, etc aren’t successes. These are pillars, benchmarks, stories. We can’t always be looking at this as a straight line journey up the PB ladder.
Changing my paradigm on this has me looking at the journey, rather than the PB. Now don’t get me wrong chasing the PB is important and a whole lot of fun, but paying attention and celebrating the whole journey is so important.
Actively Choose to Keep your Spirits Up, Doreen, 8 years running: Here are a few things I did to keep my spirits up in this last round of setbacks:
- I took the proactive big guns out. I go searching for a daily thought to frame the day. This helped me through every alternate aerobic workout and tentative comeback run over this past week.
- Celebrate every milestone back to healthy running. Positive thoughts begets positive thinking….basic but essential.
- Take Time to refocus. Sometimes the goal race needs to be re-adjusted. You can choose to feel more than OK with this. You can feel like you’ve already won. You are coming back from injury again and that is badass. That is grit and resilience.
Do Your Training Job, Allana, 16 years running: Injury time can be a lonely time. Although it is always easier to say what we would do during injury / down-time, it is so much harder to act on that advice to ourselves. A lot of times I feel like having a pity party and watching Netflix. I try to find other physical activities that I CAN do. Swimming and/or pool running have gotten me through some tough times. In fact, I’m into triathlon today because of a shin injury that led me to the pool! My advice is to take on injury recovery like an training important job. Be focused and do your homework whether is is strengthening exercises/stretching or just resting. That is your training job in this moment.
Keep Showing Up, Melissa, 8 years running: Pregnant running & maternity leave running have been lonely challenges for me. Setbacks are always harder mentally and we need to have lots of ways to trick yourself into not giving up. My advice is to train yourself to forget yesterday, today is always a fresh start. Don’t fret about it. If you feel tired/injured or just can’t get away to run, do SOMETHING healthy for yourself (healthy meal, hot bath, read a book, yoga/stretching). I’ve given up on myself a lot in previous years. I’ve now adopted the Des Linden motto of “always show up”. It’s really helped me focus on good habits even when I can’t get out for a run or a workout with less intensity.
Listen the first time, Jody, 18 years running: When my body gives me a sign that something is not right I try to listen to it right away. I take the intensity down a notch for example, or skip a run, adjust my schedule, get back to the floor for strengthening, etc. This is hard during peak training, but so important as it will just get bigger. For me listening to the little signs help in the long run. If I don’t and end up all the way injured. In my injured non-pity moments, I try to make the best of it. I try to bring my life back into balance if it has become misaligned. Being a family of five with three active kids/teenagers – there was/is usually a loss of balance. So I can clean up the house, organize things (like an extra shot at spring cleaning), do projects I have put off, regain some sanity in our house – put credits in the bank so to speak.
Enjoy the Ride, Jody, 18 years running: Running is a journey – not an end state. Enjoy the ride. Whatever it brings. There is a reason. We don’t always know what that reason is but there is one. Maybe it brings someone new into our lives (that is when I joined Love Training More), maybe we reconnect with an old friend, maybe it is a just moment when we gain new perspective (which is invaluable).
So that’s it, running friends. With only a few key races left in the North American running calendar, we hope that your down time and Maintenance Phases are going well. But if they are not, we hope these items may help you weather this and get back to smooth training.
Enjoy your journeys.
Peace,
Love Training More runners and coaches
