Well - the title sounds a bit wordy but I just thought people should understand that there ARE other options if you are injured enough to be off for a few weeks, but want to keep some level of aerobic fitness up while you recover.
I have now been off the road with some sort of inner lower knee injury (may be ligaments, I don't know, but if it is no better after the weekend I will see the doc) since last Wednesday 11th July - that is, so far, nine whole days of no running, and as you will know, there is nothing more annoying than not being able to get out there, especially when I have events coming up so I need to keep the fitness and conditioning that I've built up in my eleven months of running since finding the C25K programme.
So, what to do? Well, the gym has become even more of a friend. On Mondays I have been doing the cycle, the rower and the crosstrainer, stretches, some crunches, and some yoga moves. No treadmill, no impact stuff. The machines tell me I use up 300 calories each session, so equivalent to a 5K.
On Thursdays I have been keeping fit with my young mentee (one of his targets is also to keep fit) so we go to yet another gym that has weight resistance machines (which my Monday gym doesn't really have, because it's just the school fitness suite, but it is free!) and I try to do lots of quad strengthening exercises and any other machines, upper body etc, but no treadmill.
Walking is difficult because it aggravates the knee and I just limp, which I don't think is doing the muscles on the affected side any good, so I decided to go back and give my local swimming pool a try (not been in there since last Spring when I used it and the Wii Fit to lose weight!) and was in there this morning at 6.50am to do as many lengths as I could manage before 7.30ish when I have to deal with my chooks and be ready before work. Turns out that is 52 lengths front crawl (1300metres) so I was quite pleased with that, but I suspect my arms and shoulders will be letting me know about it in the morning.
I think the worst thing about not running is the loss of runners' high. Ok, I know that by doing other aerobic stuff, and the lower and upper body strengthening work that hopefully I will not lose too much fitness but it's not the same when I can't get out and feel the wind on my face and the freedom of knowing that my legs can carry me for several miles at a speed I was getting happier and happier with. Will I be able to get back out soon? I don't know. The doc will tell me that next week if I don't think I'm improving.
The longest time I've been off through injury before has been two weeks. Well that will be up next Wednesday. I have a 10k on the 25th of August on a somewhat hilly route on my homeland turf in Scotland and I am going to be really disappointed if I can't make a decent effort out of it, or worse, can't do it at all.
So, I have to try shrug off the frustration, and concentrate on exercising at least three times a week and maybe next week I'll do a whole mile in the pool (66.6 lengths!)
Not a happy bunny. CaroleC