Help!! any athletic trainers or people that know about running...?

Question

ok so im freaking out because i think i am out of shape... i play lacrosse in college and we ended about 3 weeks ago...i took two weeks completely off from all athletic activity then i ran lightly like 5 times in the 3rd week and now our summer work out packet started today and we were supposed to time a mile i tried on the tredmill and DIED!! it was sooooo hard i had to stop at like 3 quarters of a mile and rest which i NEVER have done beforee...it probably took me over 8 min and i usuaslly can get it under 6:30...did i really get that out of shape in 2-3 weeks???? how soon will i get back in shape?? i hate being out of shape those were the first weeks i took off in about 4 years..

Answer 1

Hi there, you are NOT out of shape, maybe if you rested for 2 years I would say so, but only 2 weeks, I don't think so. What's going on is you lost some of endurance and you can get that back, and also your whole body was resting. What happened in the Mile race is your body wasn't ready for it, maybe it was faster than what you can handle at that moment, and again I'm not saying you are out of shape, but it's only a period cuz u were off. Just get back in training, and split your training program to 3 sections, the very first one, is work out for strength, endurance, gym, long runs on a medium speed, fartlek. The second one is more specific cut back the gym, short runs on a faster speed. The third one is the time for races and timing yourself, what u do is really short runs on high speed so you get your legs loosen up and ready for the race. And remember something, the heart beats are about 60/min, so when you are training, try to get them over 160/min in one day, and next day SHOULD be less than 120/min, sometimes only 110/min, you don't ever do a hard work out two days in a row or you are gonna burn yourself, good luck