Running Maintenance...?
 

Usually I am completely faithful about working out five times a week, and I run 3 or 4 times, but this past week my schedule was impossible with a lot of travel and stress and I only worked out twice, and had to cut one of my runs short due to time constraints.

Now, I'm freaking out, worried that I've lost all my conditioning.

How many times a week do you have run in order to maintain a current level? Would I lose conditioning in one week? Should I work on increasing my time/distance this week or do I have to play catch up already?

I'm a little confused about what exactly you are asking in your original post.

To answer the original scenario (missed 3 workouts, cut 1 run short all in 1 week) no you have lost no fitness. Should this pattern continue indefinitely you will start to lose, how fast is a function of if you can workout at all and how long it lasts.

You can maintain approximate fitness for several weeks on about 50-70% of normal volume & intensity,but you may get a bit stale and need a period to readjust to working hard.

In general, referring to time completely off:

If you are a steady state run 3-4 times a week runner who took a week off return to your previous level with no adjustment.

After about 2 weeks you may want to ramp into it a bit, but really that depends on how well established your base is. If you have been running for awhile and you run outside there isnt really a reason to ease off the distance until you have been out 3-4 weeks. But you shouldnt try to match your previous paces after 2 weeks off, just run and let what is meant to happen for pace happen. You should recover all of your fitness quickly just dont force it.

If your question is more along the lines of you were ramping up mileage (like following a training plan) and you missed a week should you back track or skip the week in the plan and start the next week on schedule or ...

again after 1 week, just jump back in to the plan wherever you happen to be. After 2 weeks do 1 week of equivalent mileage as your last full week, but dont stress pace. After 3-4 weeks you may want to give yourself a few weeks to catch back up to both intensity and distance.

Thanks, Ennay!

I don't think my fitness base is too good. I finished C25K about a month ago, and had increased my time to 40 minutes, but this past week I did one 40 minute run, one 25 minute run at a faster pace, but cut short the time, and no other workouts. Was thinking to do 30 minutes today, then go back to 40 for my next run. I still have the feeling (perhaps mental?) That a few days off sends me back to square one. Newbie exerciser paranoia I guess.

Yep :lol: ... don't worry as ennay so well said, you won't lose much in a week or 2 of break... Actually, taking a week off completely, is known to rejuvinate you once you go back to working out...