Bike crash at IMLP = busted knee + 5 cracked ribs + lots of bruising + ample road rash.
Brusing and road rash are mostly gone, but the other two still linger. I spent four weeks out of the water, and five weeks off the bike. Running will be the next attempt, but I’m not expecting much on that front. To make a long story short, my 4-5 week hiatus of virtually no activity has put me right back to the beginning of last season, maybe worse. While I expect my breathing to be labored (based on my experience with rib injuries), anything but a very carefree effort becomes simply unsustainable. Once I hit the 1200-1300 yd mark in the pool, the fatigue buries me, and I’m relegated to doing 50s on the minute … assuming that I can catch my breath on a 15-20s break. I’ve done two outings on the bike, thus far. The first, I discovered that my frame was cracked so I had to throw in the towel after 8mi. Today, I switched back to my roadie for the first time since May, and I have to say … I loathe it. Perhaps I can blame it on the pounding wind, or the need for a tune up, but I got my ass handed to me today. In the end … 11 miles, just short of vomiting. I’ve taken test rides longer than that.
So I’ll end this bitching rant with a question. How fast have you personally lost fitness (e.g. post-season), and for anyone that’s been on the mend, how long until the burn-in period starts to wane? And on the route back, is the best prescription a steady diet of frequency or distance?
I had to take almost a full year off after my first IM experience, due to injury. It took a long time to really feel like it came back.
I think age will probably determine a lot of it and how much time you spent building up that fitness. If you spent years and years active, it’ll probably come back pretty quickly. I think in the grand scheme of things 5 weeks off really isn’t that much if you’ve been an endurance athlete for a long time. I would think within 2 weeks you’d be feeling way better again.
But I think frequency is key, don’t worry about length or distance - just get out there often enough WITHOUT hurting yourself from picking up the volume too quickly!
You’ll lose some fitness after five weeks, but I’m thinking it isn’t as much as you are attributing it to regarding lack of activity. Specifically, are you sure that the sore ribs aren’t inhibiting your breathing to a significant degree and what you are experiencing is low O2 saturation levels.
I’d give it some more time for the ribs to recover, keep working on expanding your currents limits and try and stay positive. I’ll betcha that’ll you come out of this with a lot more retained fitness than you think.
I’d say frequency. Every year up until this past year I took off the winter from running and had to start over again in February. I was pissed at how “out of shape” I’d gotten. I slowly built up until I could run every other day for at least 30-45 mins. I kept at it and in 5 or 6 weeks I was well on my way. I also enjoyed watching my heart rate come down as the weeks passed. It’s just time man that’s all. Go easy and don’t push it or you’ll need another rant soon. Hang in there.
Was that you on rt9N? I saw someone surrounded by emt’s still lying on the ground when I went by. It did not look good. If it was you I’m glad your on the road to recovery.
That wasn’t me on 9N, but I heard about a couple along that stretch that were pretty nasty - folks getting tangled up. Mine was solo at 85 miles, just past the firehouse aid station on Haselton Rd. Apparently, I don’t need anyone else’s help when I crash. I didn’t see any other spills, but I was alternating spots with a guy who had crashed at the bottom of the hill, fresh out of T1. He had about 1/3 of his shorts completely torn off, and his hip/ass was entirely road rash. Props to that guy for sticking it out (no pun intended).
I’m sorry to hear of your crash. Here’s a positive note: while you’ve lost fitness there are two other factors that have not slid backwards one iota and that’s experience and technique. It’s okay for fitness to wane a bit, in fact that can be a good thing between seasons. I’d recommend starting back with high frequency but keep things very short, and low, low, low on the intensity AND - the most important thing - be mentally present in every workout, have a focus point on some aspect of form so that each short, easy workout gets added value in terms of improving efficiency. If you stick to that for 6 weeks you’ll find that you’ll be able to sprinkle in both moments of intensity and longer durations quickly and easily.
It may take an elite world class athlete up to 20 weeks to return to prior peak fitness level after 2 months of inactivity with most gains occuring in 8 weeks http://thesportfactory.com/site/trainingnews/Detraining.shtml . If you’ve had an injury take you out of racing/training for 2months+, you’ll realize that it is VERY different from 3-4 weeks off, especially if you have to remain relatively inactive. On the plus side, BFD to the next cold or flu that comes along- couldn’t train well or feel crappy or 7-10 days- whatever.