Let us say you have been injured and you take a couple of weeks off. How long should your test run be? Well, that is a great question and that is what we’re talking about today on the Doc On The Run Podcast.
You have a couple of options when you get injured. One option is to wait so long that you know for a fact it has to be healed enough that it can withstand the forces of running. The other option is to move that timeline faster and make things happen a lot quicker. The only way to do that is by testing. One of the things you can test with is a test run.
A runner asked me about this and said that she had been off of running for two weeks and wanted to know how long her first test run should be if she had been two weeks since the injury actually had happened. This presumes that you have no pain, presumes you have no swelling, presumes you don’t have any bruising, any of the ominous thing, and it presumes that your doctor allows you to do this. This is not advice from me, I’m just telling you how I think about these things.
The first thing I think about is how much stress can the tissue take at that stage of recovery. The goal with any test run is to figure out where the limit is. And so, the first thing you have to remember is that you’re not going out to build your fitness, you’re going out to see if you can get away with running or not and that does not mean pushing, running super-fast, running, doing repeats or something. You want to do something that is very stable, very predictable, and the least risky thing you can do while running.
Number one, always run on a stable surface. Do not go out and run on grass or trails or something like that. Run on something like your local high school track. Always run in your most reliable shoes. What do I mean by that? Well, the shoes that you think are going to protect you the most.
Like when I was doing Ironman triathlons, sometimes I would race in Newtons. Those are not very stable. If I was not fit, I would definitely not use Newtons. Sometimes I raced in Kinvaras, which are fairly lightweight, sort of minimalist, like I think three millimeter drop shoes. Sometimes I raced in the Asics gel Kayanos, and so, or the Asics gel Nimbus. If I was using, like if I had a, what I think was going to be a bad race where I wouldn’t be running as much and I’m not as fit and couldn’t maintain my form as long, I would not use Kinvaras. I would use the Asics gel Nimbus instead.
The other thing is when you go out and run, you do not want to run at a really fast pace. You do not want to run at a really slow pace. The reason for this is if you think you’re fit enough and you think the tissue is healed enough to withstand a run, you want it to be representative of a run that you would do when you’re running, not when you’re jogging slowly to test something. That is not really testing, your form’s different.
So, run at your median pace, not your really fast pace, not your really slow pace, median pace, and run short. You’re looking for a yes or a no. This is very simple. You’re not trying to see how does it feel when you run really long. You’re just trying to say, is it safe enough for me to do this short run at a median pace without damaging the tissue enough to cause pain? That brings up the next point.
You are very, very, very closely paying attention to what you feel. You’re not trying to get the feeling of running. You’re trying to see if you sense any discomfort in the tissue that has been damaged. Now, the only two ways you can get past an injury and get back to running, there’s only two.
Number one, again, you can wait so long that it must have healed. Or two, you can exercise systematically to test the strength of the tissues and make sure that you’re maintaining your running fitness and matching the strength in that tissue with your fitness training activities. That is the only two ways. One of them is much faster than the other. One of them is definitely riskier than the other.
But you can do it if you have the guidance of your coach, your doctor, or somebody who really understands running injury. But you’re just trying to figure out how to not exceed the limits of the tissue strength as it’s healing while you continue to run, even if that is a test run. So, the test run is one of the most important things that runners can use as a tool to decide when it’s okay for them to turn to running. But it is a test, and it’s a risky test.
You have to respect it, you have to treat it with a lot of caution and care, and you have to do what is very deliberate and oftentimes requires a whole lot of restraint on your part as an athlete to not go too hard, particularly when you haven’t been running for a couple of weeks, you really want to go run, you can’t just take off and really head down the track going as fast as you can, you’re just asking for trouble. So, hopefully this helps you understand a little bit more about what you do.
If you want to understand the other steps in this process, I put it together in the 12 steps presentation. You can get it for free, www.docontherun.com/12steps, and it’s the 12 steps any injured runner can use to return to running a lot faster than if waiting for the normal timelines. So, come check it out, and I’ll see you in the training.
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