Dave –Breakthrough – I’ve ran further than a mile first time in over a year, 10K

2 weeks ago I reported how my recovery from not being able to run for a year was going well, running 2 – 3 times a week at a slow pace in short intervals with walks in between. Well the week after reporting my progress after various workouts and the weekend and a 5 hour drive to work in Miami, my hip felt a little sore and my hamstrings were really tight. Monday evening I only swam due to this, swimming 1 1/2 miles in the pool. Tuesday I ran on the treadmill, 3 minutes on then 3 walking for about 30 minutes, hip a little sore and hamstring still tight. Wednesday I worked out on the stationary elliptical and Thursday ran on the treadmill again. During the run I felt my hip pain start similar to before and I had to stop. I was convinced I was never going to get past this and was thinking about trying to find another doctor to get a contrast MRI or something.

At the weekend I rode both days on my ElliptiGo, 20 miles each day at my fastest pace so far at 15.7 mph. Monday down in Miami I swam again and Tuesday did a light jog/walk workout. My hip was a little sore so on Wednesday decided to train on the Elliptical, however after 12 minutes I had to stop as my hip started to act up, it had never done that before on the Elliptical and I wasn’t even pushing it hard. Thursday I started my stretches and exercises and my hip felt like cr.p, I was thinking it wasn’t even worth getting on the treadmill as I was positive I couldn’t do anything but for some reason still did. After about a minute and a half I started jogging at 5.5 mph and decided to see how long I could last, surprisingly I still felt good after 6 minutes which I hadn’t ran that long in over 6 months. I continued and was able to run 12 minutes, just over a mile but that was the longest in over a year. I walked for about 90 seconds and then started jogging again and was able to repeat the performance. I was amazed not only being able to run that far, which really isn’t that far, but because of how my hip felt before I started.

After another weekend of working out, including my second longest weekly distance on my ElliptiGo of 44.7 miles at my fastest pace of 16.1 miles I drove down to Miami again. On Monday I went to see Man Utd play Liverpool in the Guinness International Friendly final so didn’t work out that day. On Tuesday after a good warmup I went over to the treadmill with the intention of running 12 minutes again. I started at a 5.7 mph pace with my new cadence of 90 steps per minute and felt good. Close to 12 minutes I decided to see if I could extend it to 15 minutes. I reached that goal and my hip still felt good so set a new goal of 2 miles, which I reached and then set a goal of 5K, 3.1 miles. Well that goal came and I set of for 4 miles, then 5 miles and then decided to run a full 10K nonstop which I was able to complete. My hip felt great and I could have probably ran more but didn’t want to push it further, I probably had already done too much.  My heart rate was below 130 all the time and my breathing was easy. Going from not being able to run more than a mile for 12 months to 6.2 miles felt great. I’m not getting too carried away, having had a setback the prior 2 weeks I know I still have to take it easy. I haven’t set any date to return to racing or any particular distance, I’m just going to listen to my body and see what I’m capable of. I’m once again optimistic, not that I ever gave up hope, but now feel like there is light at the end of the tunnel. I will continue with all my cross training, swimming, riding, boot camps and yoga as I think they’re all helping me keep my glutes, core and hips strong. Good luck to everyone.