After a week off from training, how can I get back on track?

Q: I'm currently training for my second half marathon but recently a weeklong vacation caused me to completely abandon week 6 of my training. How can I get back on track without risking injury?

A: Great News, missing one week will not affect your training. You'll just have to adjust your current plan.

Think of your training plan as a template or a blueprint that you can modify to fit your needs.

The number one rule you should follow when adjusting your training for missed days is: do not try to make up missed workouts or mileage. That means no squeezing workouts closer together and no adding miles to your warm-up, cool down, or easy days. This is the quickest way to injury.

Squeezing too many workouts too close together cuts into recovery time, meaning you'll begin your next workout while your muscles are still repairing from the previous one. This can create a vicious cycle if you're not careful.

Since you missed one week of training, your first workout back should be relaxed.

Keep your first three days of running easy. Start with 60-70 percent of easy mileage. Add some strides or hill sprints. This should get you feeling almost back to normal.

Rather than running your previously scheduled workout, consider running a fartlek instead. (Fartlek is Swedish for "speed play.") After a warmup, play with speed by running at faster efforts for short periods of time (use markers like a tree, or sign) followed by easy-effort running to recover.

In order to stay injury free as you get back on track, you'll also want to build your weekly training mileage by no more than 10 percent per week. If you run 10 miles the first week, do just 11 miles the second week, 12 miles the third week, and so on.

Don't forget to use cross training and strength training as another way to get you back on track without risking injury.

Happy Training!

Dawn Angelique Roberts is a USATF Certified Running Coach training athletes in Philadelphia and around the country. Dawn is co-founder of Elite Access Running, LLC, a full service running company that specializes in coaching services, pace team coordination, race management, public relations, social media and runcations for athletes and organizations. Dawn serves as volunteer endurance coach for the American Cancer Society, DetermiNation program in Philadelphia.

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