I remember the days when I could walk about a 12-minute mile. They were the days when my mom and I would power walk the neighborhood where I grew up. We’d kill four miles in under an hour.
About a year ago, I was happy to run that fast.
Since my back surgery, I’ve been healing and haven’t been cleared to run yet. I’ve been adapting. At my first physical therapy appointment, about 7 weeks post-op, I was given what seemed like simple exercises that have proven to be more challenging than I thought.
I can really tell the difference if I skip a day of my PT exercises. However, when I do them religiously, things start to improve. It’s amazing how slow of a process this is. Yet, when I think back, I know I am doing so much better than those first few weeks after surgery, not to mention the months before I was diagnosed with an extreme herniated disk!
I was also told to begin a Walking Program.
But how does one begin a Walking Program? You may be thinking… “Well, just get out and walk!” My physical therapist gave me a pedometer and said just to track how many steps I do in a day and keep increasing it. That’s all fine and dandy. But you know what I’m really missing?
I’m missing the endorphins of aerobic activity.
I don’t just want to track my daily steps. I want to feel like I’ve accomplished something.I’m missing the structure of a running schedule leading up to the end result – a race… Then repeating the process for improvement.
I need to see progress.
So I started looking up walking training programs. Did you know that there are people out there who train to walk marathons?! While I have no intention of doing that, I knew I wanted to find a way to increase my time and mileage every week. When I found this link on training to walk a 10k, I created this schedule:
It’s a little blurry, I know. And it’s very basic so that I can change it based on how I am feeling. You may also notice that it is taped to my mirror. Whenever I have a goal, I have a chart or motivator of some sort taped to my bathroom mirror so that it is the first thing I see when I get up. It reminds me of my goal and measures my progress.
I originally mentioned that I was hoping to get back to running in early June. My doc said at my six-week post-op appointment that after six weeks of physical therapy that I could slowly get back in to running again. However, as much as I have that urge to run {who thought I’d ever say that?!}, as much as I have that pang in my stomach to want it so badly when I drive by other runners on the road, I can tell by my body that I’m not ready. I still have some more physical therapy to do. There is still a lot of tightness in my muscles from trying to protect my back. I still need to continue my PT exercises and walk daily. I plan to complete this walking program first.
It’s giving me a place to start. The first week, I walked around the block for about 15 minutes at a leisurely place – sometimes with, sometimes without the dogs. {When I first started walking again I could barely walk 1 mile or and at 2.5 miles an hour without difficulty or being in pain.} This walking program gives me a chance to start out slowly and begin increasing my time, just as I did when I was aiming for running 5ks.
However, my goal is not to walk a 10k.
I have another motivator instead!
While this walking program is all fine and dandy with increasing the time for walks, it does nothing to encourage me to go faster.
I want to increase time AND mileage every week.
Come back on Thursday {after Wine Wednesday!} to learn how I got LOST!
What are your fitness goals for June?
Cheers~
Carrie
I know how badly you want to get out there and run, but I think you are taking the right approach. No need in injuring yourself to put you that much farther back.
I printed out my Insanity 60 day calendar and have it on my refrigerator – one day X’ed off, only 59 more to go – woop!
Nice program! And I bet all that walking will help a ton when running again. Good luck with the recovery
Great idea. And PT is so important and the key to getting better. Any time I missed a day I regretted it after!
Can’t wait to hear how you got lost!
My goal is to continue plugging along at Couch to 5k. If all goes well, we should be finished in early July! 🙂
I agree with Biz, no point in injuring yourself, you are taking the right approach. I know it must be frustrating some days, but you’ll get through it! Fitness goals for June, swim, swim, swim 🙂
It is super frustrating to have to return so slowly, but worth it if you don’t want to injure yourself. If you need one I can give you the Return to Running run/walk plan my sports med guy gave me. Let me know if you do you can always email me for it backatsquarezero@gmail.com
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