Losing Running Fitness:

[Instructor57]

An interesting article for those coming back to running after injury or illness.

A Scientific Look at How Much You’ll Slow Down When Not Able to Run.

runnersconnect.net/losing-r...

[MissUnderstanding Administrator Graduate10]

That’s a really interesting read. Thanks for sharing. It’s good to see some actual numbers for a theoretical runner to make the loss of fitness more tangible. Oh to be a 20 minute 5k runner! The principles are really useful to see though!

[LottieMW Ambassador in reply to MissUnderstanding]

my thoughts exactly…what is this person of whom you speak?

😂🐌😂

[AlMorr Ambassador Graduate10]

Good article Ian, thanks for sharing, so a 20 minutes 5K runner after not running for 63 days would run 5K in 25:30, that's getting nearer to the average time of a club athlete in his 30's or 40's, who knows if he didn't run at all for 9 months then started again he might run a 5K in +30 minutes, in about the same time as a lot of runner's on this forum, but not for long, according to that article, he would soon get back to running 5K in 20 minutes or less

[Instructor57 Graduate10 in reply to AlMorr]

Yes, very interesting!Good to know we can recover 😊

[Oldfloss Administrator Graduate10]

Really interesting... thanks for this !

[Instructor57 Graduate10 in reply to Oldfloss]

Gives us hope 🤣

[Oldfloss Administrator Graduate10 in reply to Instructor57]

Yup!

[CBDB Graduate10]

That is so interesting! I’ve been thinking of my calf strain incident last year and am revising my theory of why it happened. I had thought because I hadn’t run for 2 weeks and then only once a week for 3-4 weeks, my ligaments were increasingly under strain. But this debunks this, somewhat, I think. I do have a new theory and it fits in with what the article said. (Basically my culprit are my everyday work shoes)

So it is really useful to read this. Thanks for posting.

[Instructor57 Graduate10 in reply to CBDB]

It's good to see it in writing 😊

[Frenc Graduate10 60minGraduate]

Thanks Ian, it’s always interesting to see the numbers in black and white. I can’t imagine running 12 miles with my arm wrapped in clingfilm though. 😁

[Instructor57 Graduate10 in reply to Frenc]

Haha, yes, exactly what I thought 😳

[Sulley101 Graduate10]

Thanks for sharing. Gives me an excuse to take my running kit on hols as I can prove to my other half that “a lot” ( well a tiny, tiny amount!) of my training effort will be wasted otherwise!

[Instructor57 Graduate10 in reply to Sulley101]

Haha, I like it 😊

[DocEmmett 60minGraduate]

Excellent article. Thank you so much for posting.

[LottieMW Ambassador]

Interesting article. I didn’t run for almost 6 weeks when I lost my mojo…did walk nearly every day though...

I just started C25k again…I needed the structure to keep me going. I *was* slower than my first time around…but I was consciously running slow to avoid some of the issues that had put me off.

My “comfortable” 5k pace is still about 10 minutes slower than the original…I’m excited if I break the 50 minute barrier!

😂🐌🏃🏻‍♀️

[timmothysmith01]

I appreciate you providing this important information to us.

[RunforMum]

Really interesting thank you and relevant information for me at the moment as I'm not running due to a bad back and achilles problems. Haven't run for a few weeks and I'm nowhere near recovered yet so I don't know what I will restart with when the time comes.