Attention all runners! Need advice, returning to running.

143tobe

In the past I always enjoyed running, or maybe I should say jogging as I never went very fast. I sometimes take my dog for a jog instead of a walk because he has this crazy energy, but it's always been for like half an hour. This weekend, I went for what was supposed to be a quick 20, but I just couldn't stop. I ended up running for 50 (albeit slow) minutes. Later that early evening, my husband and I were teaching my son how to ride a bike and he ended up going miles, and I had to chase him the whole way. My husband had the baby on his back, so I had no choice but to keep up. The next day my body was pretty tired. I took the dog for his regular walks, but took it easy for the rest of the day. Then this morning I decided to go for another jog. I took the dog, and we went for about an hour. I dropped him off at home but I still wanted to run, so I went another 30 minutes. I feel now like I am hooked. Although it was at a slow pace the jogging felt almost effortless, relaxing. How is this possible when I haven't ran in at least 6 years? Anyway, that's not my question. My question is, how many days should I take off between running? I really want to make it a daily thing, but, I am still very overweight and I'm not sure what kind of training schedule I need since I'm not training for a race or anything. My goal right now is just to run for at least 90 minutes 5 or 6 days a week. I'm afraid of taking days off of running though. I'm afraid that if I take too many off days, that I will lose the drive and never return. I know if I don't take days off, I will break. So how many off days a week do I need in this, my new beginning?

FitnessLover001

Honestly you can run every day if your body keeps on going! Running is efficient cardio, and maybe you've just been pretty active lately, and your body can handle it. When I was younger and would do spurts of exercise every couple of months, I could also handle running for a long period of time. I never had to "rebuild" myself back up. Maybe your legs just have it in you If you can run for 30 min a day, you can nail that goal of 90 min per week.

ps remember: your head will always give up before your body ever does, so I say keep running daily if you feel good

hermann341

What kind of pace are you able to maintain? How far are you running? What is your heartrate while you run? If you're doing 15 min miles, your 90 min goal would be about 6 miles. Ten minute miles would be more like 9 miles. Certainly an achievable goal (and would add up to the kind of miles needed to consider running a half or full marathon). About.com has some pretty good training schedules for different distances. Example: http://running.about.com/od/racetraining/a/10Kbeginner.htm or http://running.about.com/od/racetraining/a/basichalf.htm. As a "beginning" runner, you may only want to train for 3 or 4 days a week while you work up to a 5 or 6 day a week routine. Even if you don't pursue running in an event, the schedules will help get where you want to go.

aswearingen22

Be careful about too much too fast, it's a recipe for injury. What is your current pace per mile? I'd aim to run maybe 3 miles 3 days a week with an hour run one day on the weekend (or double or so what a daily run would be) and then very gradually increase it from there, no more than a 10% mileage increase per week.

143tobe

Thanks guys. Sorry I didn't answer right away but I went to bed. Should have said that in my post. I am really unsure of my speed or distance as I have no GPS and I'm running on unmapped walking/farm paths. I think I was going somewhere between a 12 minute mile, and 15 considering I had to stop a handful of times for my dog to 'go' or drink water, and I stopped once to stretch for a few minutes. If I didn't stop to do these things I would say I probably averaged a 13 minute mile. My heart rate was always between 144 and 177, 177 of course when I was pushing to go a little faster. The average was probably about 165. Don't know if anyone will get back to me but I appreciate your input. I woke up feeling good this morning, just a little stiff, but not sore. I took my dog for a brisk 30 minute walk, then came home and did 20 minutes of power yoga. I feel good. As far as my jogging path, I think I will take my car and measure the areas that I am able to take my car to. It will really help to be able to know the distances I am covering. I guess for now my best bet is to do a long run every other day, with alternating shorter runs and other workouts in between.

GillianMcK

Some people can run every day with no problems but a lot of us can't without picking up injuries.
I used to run 3 days a week with a day in between runs (I would do a bootcamp or weights or something else for 3 of those days), currently I'm running 4 days a week because I'm training for a marathon (looked at Ultra marathon training and binned that idea as it involved running twice a day)!!
Once the marathon is over I'll drop back down to 3 days, running is one of the most repetetive things you can do and a lot of injuries are repetetive strains which is why a lot of training programs advise a day in between each run (shin splints being the most common, but I had issues with my achilles last year).

Download an app for your phone that will track your runs (map my run, endomondo, nike +), you can also link it to MFP.

Check this thread as well, I think it's really good and covers most of the questions we all ask when we start running
http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1217573-so-you-want-to-start-running?hl=so+you+want+to+start+running

PrairieRunner2015

Be careful about too much too fast, it's a recipe for injury. What is your current pace per mile? I'd aim to run maybe 3 miles 3 days a week with an hour run one day on the weekend (or double or so what a daily run would be) and then very gradually increase it from there, no more than a 10% mileage increase per week.

This is what I was going to suggest. Even though your cardiovascular system may be able to handle the running, your muscles, tendons, ligaments, joints, and bones are not (It just takes our bodies longer to adapt these for running.). When you over tax these systems too much through doing too much, too soon you will wind up with an injury which will sideline you. It happened to me a couple of times before I learned from the bad experience and it almost put me off of running altogether. Your enthusiasm is great and running seems like it is something you wish to truly do and enjoy. If this is the case, have patience and enjoy building up to where you wish to be.