I started running about a year ago. No specific goals just for fun, was making good progress till I got up to being able to run about 7 km 5 days a week no problem.
Unfortunately a series of health problems lead to getting really out of condition and I’m dealing with some knee tendonitis due to irresponsibility when doing strength training.
Now I’m gasping after 3 km and having to carefully pace myself to avoid aggravating the knee while I build it back up.
On one hand I know that a lot of the long term adaption isn’t totally gone, that I’m not starting from zero. When I started I would throw up after running a block.
On the other hand it’s demotivating as fuck putting in so much effort to hobble through stuff that recently was relaxing.
I’m obviously not the first person or the last to deal with this so I’m asking if you could share times when you’ve dealt with recovering and what kept you going.
Having goals, but also realistic expectations. Knowing that you can’t got from 0 to full throttle w/out hurting yourself.
For my, in 2014, I had an itb issues which caused me to dns my first marathon, I found I could not run w/out pain for a long time. I was hurt, crying. I took time off, and got the leg functioning right again. Restarted very slowly. Ran 1200 miles that year starting with 1-2 mile runs 3 x a week, lots of short distance miles. The way I got back was avoiding getting injured by over during it. I set a 2016 goal of a marathon, but I built my base over 12 months.
Good luck, but train smart
This is what worked for me when I had hip flexor problems from overtraining. I had to take some time off and then build back slowly. It’s the only thing that worked for me after months of trying to “run easy” while doing leg work in the gym. I’m the end I just needed to let it heal. Oh and I used a heating pad every day.