7, 7 run fitness is lost.


More serious answer: you will be pretty horrid at first but it will come back pretty fast. ~4 weeks of building up mileage and you will start to feel pretty good.

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

It's funny, but on the bike you just lose power, there' no real technique involved. But swimming and running you are just plain rusty, combined with specific fitness.

It depends too on how much you were running and training overall and how long you were at that level before you stopped.

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TrainingBible Coaching
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My experience this summer: 1 minute off of 5k split in a sprint triathlon.

I lost 6 weeks of running this summer to a stress fracture. Did a triathlon after returning to running for 10 days with the longest run being 35 minutes. I was around a minute slower as compared to same course 2 years earlier, didn't do the race last year. Age could be a factor. 55 vs. 53. I've been running for 40 years so I have a substantial base to draw from. My legs hurt more than expected for the two days following. YMMV.

When I herniated a couple discs last year I didn't run for about 2.5 months. I was doing some swimming and biking. When I came back my HR would skyrocket at an 9:00/mile pace and I felt terrible. After 3 weeks of building my mileage back up my fitness started to come back. At about 5 weeks something just clicked and all was well again. Like other posters have said though it's highly individual.

Nothing makes up for it. Running is far too sport-specific for other fitness to carry over.

The good news is you've not been off long and it comes back quick.

Timely question. I too just took off 4 weeks due to a stress fracture. My last run was a 5k split during a sprint tri, I've been feeling good this week so I'm going to race a sprint on Saturday, planning on running easy-ish and see how things go. I too increased my cycling and swimming quite a bit so cardiovascular will be golden, but I'm expecting run specific muscular endurance to suffer a bit.

Pains me to see my racing flats collecting dust...............

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The secret of a long life is you try not to shorten it.
-Nobody

I'm doing IM Florida. I'm not sure how much time I will need off running. My ortho doc thinks I impinged my ankle joint. I'm told not to run till I feel close to 100%. I also have to take NSAIDS for 7-10 days to get it to calm down. I can't even walk right without feeling it.

I will tell you on 9/8/14.

I strained my calf muscle 2 weeks ago. I ran once a few days later, and did a short brick this last weekend that I cut short due to discomfort. I am doing IMWI in 2.5 weeks and will likely not run until either race day, or a few days before to test the water. I am substituting bike for run workouts. My hunch is that running might feel a bit strange due to lack fo recent running, I do not suspect my run time will change much at all. If this was a standalone race or a sprint or oly, I would be more concerned.

NSAIDs (motrin specifically) didn't help me a bit. No running and icing 2-3 times a day seemed to have worked. I could walk fine, running only slightly painful, but stairs were my nemesis. Couldn't walk down stairs without significant pain. I've been pain free for a few days, even tried stairs the last two days without any noticeable discomfort.

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The secret of a long life is you try not to shorten it.
-Nobody

Can you aqua jog? If you can, you will lose very little run fitness if you commit to a structured, challenging program.

I'm not sure...he said not to do anything that strains it. I guess I can try it out to see if it bothers it. If not, I am good to go.

Best I've ever done was with full on HS swim team practices when I was 15. Ran 4:44 for the mile in May that year at 14, then after a full 3 months or 40k yds/week I ran 4:35 indoors after 2 weeks of run training. A lot of that was just due to strength gained from maturing and all, but 9 sec in the mile with so little training was a bit of a shock to me.

More to the point, though: I've found that high volume running helps out considerably with cycling. Not so the other way around. Depending on how much you were running and what your fitness was like before, I'll say 30% lost. That doesn't mean you'll be 30% slower. I don't know what fitness in measured in though, so just 30% off that. Like Jack said.

I think everyone is different in that I find (for a non runner) that if my bike fitness is good, and if I get a little sport specific run training in (minimal) that I am still fairly decent at 5k or so distances. Longer is another matter. Without that strong cycling for the base, it's another story. I suspect Jack is right in that you'll have a slow couple 2-4 weeks and be back up to speed quickly.

So, I think the good news is your engine has been getting work, and if you get back to it, it'll be a more pleasant build up then if you were truly lacking total fitness/.

j

In 2010 I took 12 weeks off of all tri-training due to a pretty bad bike crash. I walked a lot during my time off and raced a sprint the first week I was allowed to swim or run. I'd been on the trainer for about 3 weeks. I swam one armed in the race but biked and ran only 30 sec slower than the year prior over 12 miles and 5k. 4 weeks later I did a 70.3 in a time significantly faster than the same race a year earlier thanks in large part to a faster run split. The time off helped me but my injuries were not leg related. I would simply say that 4-6 weeks is ideal to get back if you follow the 10% rule for returning from a stress reaction.

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Swimmer
http://www.usprotri.com/LAMASTRA.html
http://www.bodyphyxinternational.com

Just out of curiosity did anything else change between the two 70.3's? Nutrition, weight or anything of the like.

Actually, I did lose about 10 lb only due to fear I'd gain weight. I think prior I was also a chronic over trainer. Since then I've come to really enjoy time away both in the form of off days and off season. For me it took a forced break and improved outcomes upon a return to the sport to realize that rest is more important than I believed prior. My swimming and swim coaching background sort of catered to overtraining the bike and run. Inherently, swimming is much easier to go hard a lot without negative effect. I'm guessing with your stress fracture you fell into the trap of ignoring initial symptoms. If you learn to avoid this going forward you will improve a lot from this time away from running.

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Swimmer
http://www.usprotri.com/LAMASTRA.html
http://www.bodyphyxinternational.com

I'm going to say it all depends, sounds like a cop out right? I've been dealing with achilles tendinitis all year, had it diagnosed in April and cut my running down to a mile a day through mid-June, then switched to a 5k every other day for 3 weeks, then the next week did a 7 mile run and a 4 mile run. A few days later I did a half marathon distance in 6 minutes better than my PR. I had been riding quite a bit and a few days before the run had biked 500 miles in 6 days, so I think as long as you're running some the endurance transfers over. Now obviously with zero running, your speed will suffer, but I'd think you could pick a lot of it back within a couple weeks. I think lots of biking will help with any endurance, but doubt swimming really makes much difference on the run. Of course in my case I also lost 25 lbs, so that probably had a little to do with it.