Cross-Training – 80/20 Endurance

I’ve never seen more runners starting over than I have within the last year. Many, like me, have had to start over after a bout of Coronavirus. Others have had to do so after race cancellations robbed them of motivation. Even outside of pandemic years, though, starting over is a common phenomenon in running. More often than not, injuries are the reason.

How to start running again

Endurance athletes of other types have to start over too sometimes, but running’s high-impact nature makes it special. Numbers don’t lie: Runners get injured far more often than swimmers, cyclists, rowers, cross-country skiers, and stand-up paddleboarders, and the comeback process is trickier. As someone who has been through this process more times than I care to remember, and has also coached many other runners through it, I know the do’s and don’ts. Here are my top five do’s for starting over with running:

1. Use the 48-Hour Rule

If you’ve gone more than three weeks without running, you can trust that the tissues of your lower extremities have lost some durability—a classic case of “use it or lose it.” To regain this durability, you need to expose your legs to repetitive impact, but you also must give them sufficient time to adapt to this stress between bouts. Hence the 48-hour rule. In the first two weeks of your return, limit yourself to every-other-day running. This will help you avoid shin splints and other issues that commonly set runners back when they’re starting over.

2. Lean on Cross-Training

If you limit yourself to doing only as much running as you can without undue risk, you won’t get fit very quickly. Thankfully, there’s a plethora of low- and nonimpact options for cardio exercise that you can use to supplement your running and accelerate your fitness development. These options include cycling, elliptical running, and uphill treadmill walking.

You can further accelerate your comeback by doing some work at high intensity. There’s a tendency among runners who are starting over to do everything at low intensity under the assumption that, when your fitness level is low, you can’t handle high intensity. This isn’t true. Research has shown that even elderly cancer patients can handle and benefit from high-intensity exercise. Sure, you might not be very good at high-intensity exercise when you’re just starting over, but that’s not the same as being unable to handle it.

In fact, in one sense, there’s no better time for high-intensity training than when you’re starting over, because a little goes a long way. A good starting point might be two light interval sets per week, such as 6 x 20 seconds in Zone 5 and 4 x 1 minute in Zone 4.

3. Listen to Your Body

It’s okay to have a plan for your running comeback, but know that your body is going to have the last word regardless. High energy levels and low levels of pain and soreness indicate that you can safely increase your training load, while fatigue and moderate to high levels of pain or soreness are cautions to take it slow. Don’t make too many assumptions about what your comeback will or should look like. Be willing to take the occasional step back in response to pain or fatigue to spare yourself from a greater involuntary setback.

When I was coming back from COVID in the spring of 2020, I went out for a 23-mile run that became a 12-mile run when I discovered it just wasn’t my day, and I’d be foolish to force my way through the planned distance. Four days later, I tried again and succeeded. Who knows who deep a hole I would have dug for myself if instead I’d forced it the first time. Let that be a lesson to you!

4. Focus on Now

Runners who are starting over after extended time away from training often get stuck in the past or in the future. Some beat themselves up by comparing themselves unfavorably to the runner they were in the past, while others fret over how far they have to go to reach their desired level of fitness. Both of these orientations drain all the fun out of training and lead to poor decisions. In particular, runners who fail to embrace where they are in the process tend to try to rush it, which never ends well.

When an athlete I coach starts looking back or ahead in unhelpful ways, I tell them this: “As long as you’re training, you’re either already fit or getting fitter, and neither is bad.” Those who take my advice find that, by focusing on the present, they are able to enjoy getting fitter despite being unfit just as much as they enjoy being fit. Now you try!

5. Keep it Fun

Speaking of fun, I strongly believe that enjoyment should be a top priority at all times in training. It’s hard to improve when you’re not having fun, and it’s equally hard not to improve when you are having fun. At the beginning of a comeback, many runners make the mistake of thinking, “If I can just get through this awkward first phase, I can start enjoying my training again.”

Wrong attitude! The first phase will be far less awkward and more fruitful if you make enjoyment a point of emphasis. Do whatever it takes to stay positively engaged in the process, whether it be by mixing up run formats and venues to running with people (or pets) whose company you enjoy.

Some of my fondest running memories are of times when I was starting over after an interruption. The same can be true for you if you practice the tips I’ve just given you.

Currently I’m reviewing the copyedited manuscript of my forthcoming book The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life, which is available for preorder. (Subtle, eh?) Chapter 6 tells the remarkable story of Jamie Whitmore, a dominant professional off-road triathlete in the 2000’s who later overcame a Jobian cancer ordeal to win a gold medal in cycling at the 2016 Paralympic Games. One of the things that makes Jamie’s story so instructive for other athletes is the can-do attitude she brings to bear in dealing with setbacks. “I’ve always been the type to say, ‘What can I control?’” she said when I interviewed her just over a year ago. “Even with cancer, it was, ‘Well, what can I do?” Because there’s so much you can’t do.”

When something is taken away from you, it’s natural to think about and regret what’s been lost. But beyond a certain point, this natural response is unhelpful, standing in the way of making the best of the situation. Successful athletes like Jamie Whitmore do not waste time and energy brooding on what’s been taken away from them. Instead, after acknowledging what they can no longer do, they identify what they can do and then do it. In this way, if their problem is solvable, they solve it faster than the brooders do, and if it’s not solvable (like the permanent damage done to Jamie’s body by her cancer surgeries), they at least make the best of the situation.

The most common type of bad situation endurance athletes encounter is injury. Most athletes get upset when an injury takes away their ability to train normally and remain in a funk until they’ve fully healed. Indeed, this reflexive emotional response to injury is so normal that a lot of athletes assume it’s ineluctable, but it’s not. Some athletes don’t get upset, or at least don’t remain in a funk, when they get injured. After an initial pout (which is only human), they pivot from a problem focus to a solution focus.

I like to say I’ve suffered more injuries than any runner my age, and over the years I’ve come a long way in terms of my ability to manage injuries emotionally. I’ll never forget the 2002 Boston Marathon, which I watched on television, grief stricken, having suffered a hip injury in training just 10 days before, when I was fitter than I’d ever been and couldn’t wait for Patriots Day to roll around so I could prove it. I remember thinking (naively) that I’d missed a chance I might never have again, little knowing that my lifetime-best marathon still lay 15 years in the future.

From where I sit today, I find it hard to believe that grief-stricken runner was me. I suffered my latest injury—an acute strain of the peroneal tendons in my left foot—three weeks ago, and it really hasn’t bothered me in the slightest on an emotional level, even though this one happened during a marathon PR attempt coinciding with another magical fitness peak. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’ve been indifferent to the injury. It hurt quite a bit for quite a while, and I’ve missed running, but overall I’ve maintained emotional equanimity by doing what I now always do when I suffer any kind of setback, which is to emulate the can-do attitude of the likes of Jamie Whitmore.

Specifically, in this case, I cross-trained with a mix of bicycling, elliptical biking, stand-up paddling, and deep-water running. I modified my strength workouts to work around my pain and consulted my friend Ryan Whited of Paragon Athletics in Flagstaff, who guide me through some diagnostic tests via FaceTime and showed me some rehab exercises that would not only help me get back to running but also reduce my risk of suffering future injuries resulting from lack of mobility in my left ankle. Additionally, I signed up for a 40K cycling time trial race to give my damned-up competitive drive something to focus on and alleviate the emotional burden of knowing I was losing running fitness.

In the first couple of weeks after the injury occurred, friends and family members asked me frequently how my foot was doing, and when I told them I was still limping, they expressed sympathy. But while I appreciated their concern, their underlying assumption that because I was in pain and limping and couldn’t run I was upset was erroneous. Sure, I heard from that fearful inner voice telling me I should be deeply worried about the lack of improvement in my symptoms, but whereas 15 years ago that voice might have gone unchecked, I was now able to tune it out, knowing the injury would heal in due time, as injuries always do.

And it did. Three weeks to the day after I suffered the injury, I completed a short, slow test run on my treadmill, pain free. Injuries happen to everyone; they’re part of the sport. But not everyone copes with injuries equally well. Next time you get hurt, channel your inner Jamie Whitmore and negotiate your way through it with maximum aplomb by manifesting a can-do attitude.

We’re all familiar with the phenomenon of cramming. You fail to attend any of your American Civilization 101 classes or to do any of the required reading all semester, and then, with one week remaining before the final exam, you hit the books and burn the midnight oil in a heroic effort to catch up enough to escape with a passing grade.

Although stressful, cramming can work for students with good knowledge retention. The brain is an amazingly adaptable organ, capable of assimilating tremendous amounts of information in very little time given intensive exposure. Heck, you can learn a whole new language in a week if you fully immerse yourself in it and you’re good with accents.

It’s a different story with the rest of the body. The muscles and cardiovascular system are also highly adaptable, but they change on a much slower timescale than the brain does. You can’t cram for a marathon in the same way you can cram for a college exam. But a form of cramming is possible in marathon training under certain circumstances. Under normal circumstances, runners in marathon training build fitness at a leisurely rate, because in doing so they minimize the risk of injury and burnout and maximize the likelihood of successfully attaining peak fitness for race day. It is possible, however, to purposely build fitness more quickly, and even to aim to build fitness at the maximum rate achievable, and indeed this is precisely what I am doing now.

Here’s how I ended up here: This past winter I was on a roll—training consistently and intensively and racing well at distances ranging from 5K to the marathon. Then I got sick. Really sick. Between early March and early April I did virtually zero exercise, and as a result I hemorrhaged fitness. It wasn’t until April 8^th that I felt ready to try my first tentative test run. It went okay, and so, being who I am, I immediately set about making plans to get back to racing.

In the early days of my illness, when I assumed it was going to be the usual mild flu, I committed to all four events of the Rambling Runner Virtual Race Series: a 5K in late March, a 10K the following week, a half marathon in mid-April, and a marathon in mid-May. By the time I was back on my feet, the first two events had already past and the half marathon was just around the corner, and I was nowhere near ready for it. But I had five and a half weeks from the date of those first six 10-minute treadmill miles to prepare for the marathon. Could I pull it off? I decided to give it a shot.

The goal for me is not to achieve the sub-2:40 time I believe I would have run in the Modesto Marathon on March 27^th if COVID-19 hadn’t hit and I hadn’t gotten it. I just want to embrace the physical and mental challenge of seeing how far back I can come in such a short period of time. I’m approaching it as a test of my knowledge, experience, and judgment more than anything.

After surviving a handful of slow but increasingly normal-feeling jogs, I decided to sit down and create a plan for the last four weeks of my marathon cramming. I know this sounds like an obvious step, but I normally train without formal plans. I’ve been running long enough that I am generally able to train very effectively by creating a loose mental road map and filling in the details as I go. In this case, though, I felt the need to take a more conventional approach.

The key decisions I made are as follow: 1) I would run every other day. I was doing this even before I got sick, as I often do when some pesky sore spot in my much-abused body makes it unwise or impossible to run more often. 2) I would make every run count, alternating long runs and quality runs so that I was doing one of each every four days. And 3) I would do a ton of cross-training (indoor and outdoor cycling, steep uphill treadmill walking, and elliptical biking) to maximize my aerobic fitness development without the heightened injury risk that would attend running more. I kicked it off with a 14-mile run on April 17^th, one month out from the virtual marathon. Here’s the rest of the plan (runs appear in bold):

Week of April 19	Week of April 26	Week of May 3	Week of May 10
Hill Reps 10 x 0:30 hard uphill Strength Training Cross-training	Strength Training Cross-training	Easy Run 8 miles easy Cross-training	Cross-training 2x
Cross-training 2x	Speed Intervals 10 x 1:00 @ mile race pace Cross-Training	Strength Training Cross-training	Marathon Pace Run 14 miles including 10 miles @ marathon pace
Long Run 17 miles easy	Cross-training 2x	Tempo Run 10 miles including 6 miles @ half-marathon effort Cross-training	Strength Training Cross-training
Cross-training 2x	Long Run 23 miles easy	Cross-training 2x	Easy Run 8 miles easy Cross-training
Steady State Run 8 miles including 6 miles @ marathon effort Strength Training Cross-training	Cross-training 2x	Critical Velocity Reps 4 x 1 mile a little faster than 10K race pace Cross-training	Progression Run 8 miles with the last 3 @ 80%, 85%, and 90% Strength Training
Cross-training 2x	Strength Training Easy Run + drills and strides	Strength Training Cross-training	Cross-training
Long Run 20 miles easy	Virtual 1-Mile Race + 2-mile tempo Cross-training	Depletion Run 20 miles easy, no carbs before or during	Easy Run + drills and strides

As you can see, it’s quite aggressive, especially considering the thinness of the fitness base it builds on. But it’s not reckless. It represents the limit of what I think my body can adapt to, no more. And if it turns out to be too much at any point, I can always dial back. And if I fail to dial back sufficiently or in time and I get injured and have to take a little time off from running and delay my next race, so what? I’ve survived worse.

Recently I received an email message from an athlete who is following one of my online training plans. In it, he asked, “Why do you only have one day off every three weeks?”

Although I did not ask the athlete why he asked this question, my assumption was that he was accustomed to training plans that include at least one day of rest every week and he was unsure if the plan he was following would afford him enough recovery. This question speaks to a general lack of understanding among athletes about the difference between rest and recovery that I would like to address here.

The purpose of a rest day—defined as a day on which no formal workouts are undertaken—is to promote recovery, or the processing of fatigue induced by prior workouts. But absolute rest is not always necessary for recovery. Often it is enough for an athlete to merely do less exercise than he or she is accustomed to doing on a daily basis. For example, if your average daily running volume is 6 miles, you may get enough recovery to process a week’s worth of accumulated fatigue by running 3 miles on a given day instead of resting outright.

Doctors use the term “relative rest” in reference to the practice of exercising some parts of the body while allowing an injured area of the body to rest for the sake of healing. For example, swimming would constitute relative rest for a runner with an injured knee. But I use the same term to refer to the practice of recovering from prior training by exercising less than normal instead of not at all. To go back to the example I gave in the last paragraph, a 3-mile run constitutes relative rest for a runner who normally runs 6 miles a day.

It goes without saying that the fitter you are, the more you can train on a designated recovery day without spoiling the intent of that day’s exercise. The professional runners I trained with in Flagstaff last summer often went several weeks without taking a day off from running. But a beginner or other athlete with a low fitness level may need to take a full day off from training at least once a week to avoid falling behind on recovery.

Triathletes can get relative rest from cycling and (especially) from running through swimming, both because it is a nonimpact activity and because it is an arms-dominant activity, whereas cycling and running are both legs-dominant. Bodybuilders achieve relative rest in a similar way by training different muscle groups each day. One study even found that inserting a swim between two runs actually accelerated recovery from the first run compared to resting outright between the two runs. For the most part, the notion that “recovery” sessions promote recovery is a myth (their true function is to provide an aerobic training stimulus in a way that does not impede recovery from prior training), but this is one exception.

Of course, you don’t need to be a triathlete to exploit relative rest in this fashion. Runners can split the difference between resting and running by doing a nonimpact cross-training activity such as riding an ElliptiGO. Why not simply rest? Because fitness is largely a function of training volume. The more you train (within your limits), the fitter you will get. For this reason, you don’t want to rest any more than you need to. This point is the final piece of the answer to the question I referenced at the beginning of this point.

How to start running again

1. Use the 48-Hour Rule

2. Lean on Cross-Training

3. Listen to Your Body

4. Focus on Now

5. Keep it Fun

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