You’ve just printed-out the perfect 16-week training schedule from Running Times, Runner’s World, or Hal Higdon’s website. Just follow the program exactly and you’ll race like a beast and set a personal best. One small problem – while your training program may be perfect, life is not. At some point, you’ll face challenges that will throw a wrench in your training plan. Challenges may come in the form of family, work, illness, or injury. When these challenges do not allow you to follow your schedule as required, how will you respond? How you adapt to these challenges will play a large part in your program’s success. Consider the following guidelines when faced with life’s challenges to your perfect training program.
One Missed Work-Out (Non-Injury):
An occasional missed work-out should have no impact on your training as long as you carefully schedule your important work-outs during the week. Remember to never schedule consecutive hard days in terms of mileage or intensity. If your long run is on Saturdays, consider scheduling Mondays and Wednesdays as your hard workout days. By doing so you’ll create some cushion and flexibility to your schedule for the inevitable missed work-out. For example, if work gets crazy on Monday, you can always shift your hard workouts to Tuesday and Thursday and have Friday to rest before your long run on Saturday. If your hard workouts were originally scheduled for Tuesday and Thursday and you have to move them back to Wednesday and Friday, no cushion exists to provide an easy day or day of rest before your Saturday long run.
2-4 Days Off (Non-Injury):
Let’s assume that you miss two or three days of running because you’ve got a deadline at work or your kids are sick. You have not lost fitness so feel free to resume your program as if you never missed a day. Do not try to squeeze in extra miles to meet a weekly mileage total. Do not run back-to-back hard workouts to squeeze in speed-work. Such efforts may lead to injury. If Tuesday was your last run and you are unable to run the next three days, simply pick-up your schedule as called for on Saturday.
5-10 Days Off (Non-Injury)
Let’s assume that you fall victim to the flu or another virus and cannot run for 5-10 days. You may have lost some fitness. Be careful and try to restart your program where you left it in terms of mileage and intensity. Don’t skip ahead as your body may not respond well to the increased stress. For example, let’s assume you completed week 6 of your program and then missed the next week. Don’t skip ahead to week 8. Consider restarting your program by repeating week 6 again or carefully moving into week 7.
Slight Aches and Pains:
At some point during your training program, you may encounter an overly tight hamstring or a nagging pain under your knee cap. Your body is talking to you. Listen to it. Take a few days off to rest and treat the minor injury. Gently stretch tight muscles or elevate and ice an inflamed knee. Also consider the root cause of the minor injury. Have you increased your mileage or intensity too quickly? Consider alternate forms of exercise like swimming or biking that will not aggravate the stressed body part. If your symptoms have ceased and you have not committed any known training errors, resume your schedule with an easy day and move ahead as planned. Do not try to meet weekly mileage goals or squeeze in quality workouts that you missed. Missing a day or two of running will not impact your training significantly. Allowing a minor ache to blow-up into a major injury, however, will sideline you and force you to start from scratch.
Significant injuries or training interruptions involving more than 10-14 days should be handled with extreme caution. You cannot run through injuries or disregard basic training principles (hard/easy days, 10 percent rule of weekly mileage progressions, etc.) without catastrophic consequences. Regardless, by carefully listening to your body and intelligently adapting your training schedule, you can run around life’s minor obstacles on your way to success in your goal race.
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