Why I Took a Break from Racing: My 12-Month Sabbatical

July 29, 2024 | By DLake

I’m taking a twelve-month no-racing sabbatical, hence the lack of training updates in this section. I chose not to race because I want to focus on a few specific things in my life and work so that I can show up in those areas with more energy and general enthusiasm. I also wanted to create higher-quality and more consistent content (e.g., this newsletter). Feeling zapped after hard training sessions two to three times a week was getting old and causing unnecessary stress.

I’m six months into this “experiment” of sorts, and I can say it’s been a positive experience. I’ve learned a lot about my body. I also have two slightly profound thoughts I want to run past you (pun intended, lulz): one about a new idea on the challenge of maintaining a health-fitness balance and the other about the acute vs. chronic training load paradox.

Thought One – Maintaining health and fitness is hard regardless of racing

My goal for most of this twelve-month experiment is maintaining homeostasis between my health and fitness. This gives me the best chance to do the whole ‘one percent better everyday thing’ that I’m always yapping about while allowing me to perform better as I age. See, I do practice what I preach. When I’m racing and focusing on running my best times, health ends up second string as my fitness increases.

My body craves the progressive block ramp-up style training when I’m in race-focus mode. I love the cycle of overloading my body to watch it break down, recover stronger and be ready for the next week of training. I’ve found this necessary to maintain health and fitness because you can’t keep doing the same twenty-minute run at the same pace three times a week and expect to get fitter. Your body will adapt to the stress of that run and maintain just enough fitness for that run. Since I’m not chasing a faster time, I need to manage the progressive overload differently than I would if I were racing. The increments and jumps should be and have been less.

This leads to my second thought on achilles injuries.

Thought Two – Managing acute and chronic training load with running is crucial to avoiding “random injuries”

About eight weeks ago, I strained my right achilles. It was weird because I thought I was super fit and training in a smart way to avoid injuries and burnout.

(This is a bit of a nerdy rant.) After lifting like a pro runner, I’m probably the strongest and most powerful I’ve ever been – yes, even more than back in my early twenties running a 49-second 400m sprint. While my fitness is roughly eighty percent of what it usually is this time of year, I’m also the most ‘off-season fit’ I’ve ever been (off-season fit is a term I’m going to make my own thing because it’s not really a thing).

Calf raises have been and will always be a priority due to a lingering chronic left achilles issue over the past five years. Over the last six months, it was summer here in Sydney, Australia, so I was cross-training quite a lot. With that, I ran two to three days a week, with a weekly run volume of 20-30 km on two to three days (twelve to eighteen miles for the metrically sensitive).

In the two weeks leading up to my strained achilles, I ran two days a week: one run, a hard zone four Vo2 max workout (400 repeats at current 5k fitness pacing), and the other, an easy long run. That was a recipe for an acute achilles strain, as it was sixty percent of my usual load for the week in just one run – pure craziness! I was forced to reassess wtf I’ve been doing quickly and realized I should do easier running throughout the week to get that hard workout’s percentage closer to twenty to thirty per cent of my weekly overall load. Also, doing 14×400 repeats at a 5k pace with 40 seconds rest might be a bit too much in general, and I’ll back it down to 18-10 400s max during the off-season when the weekly run load is lower.

The last aha moment I had in the weeks after that strain was the surface I was running on wasn’t the best (These aha moments kept rolling into my brain as I hyper-analyzed what went wrong). I usually do that 400m repeat workout on the track, and since my track doesn’t open up until 3:30 pm Mon-Thu (Australian psychopaths!), I wanted to get the workout in during the morning hours, and I ran it on concrete… not even asphalt (which is softer). The achilles said “no bueno” and went “ouchy” halfway. I ignored this, thinking it was random, but by the end of the workout and the next morning, I was very… very wrong about that.

Solution(s)

I’m fortunate to say that while I failed halfway through this six-month experiment, I have a lot of awesome takeaways that will help my running and overall training moving forward:

• I will now strength-train both calf muscles equally, as I usually focus on the left side 20% more than the right side. I mainly do this because the left side has all the issues and is generally weaker.
• Strength train the soleus more and do calf/soleus workouts that target the calf’s sides (lateral and medial), such as sideways/angled calf raises.
• The strain forced me to not do any power movements and sprints for four weeks so I reverted back to base training and steady z2 running. Ironically, I avoided this running since I only ran two to three times a week and had no room for it. This meant I could improve my MAF high z2 speed, which I have a weird passion for and a dream to someday run a kilometer/mile at my high z2 MAF heart rate in 3:59 (I’m eleven seconds off when I was my fittest, so it’s possible!)
• I became familiar with the artificial grass soccer field near my house and gym. It’s pancake flat and 300 meters. While the turns are sharper than I would like (ninety degrees vs a soft track), it’s better than nothing and great for building up those boring thirty to forty-minute z2 steady mid-week runs while taking the load off my achilles and body. I can even do short sprints here in the mornings.
• I’m attempting to do something new and let my brain get used to the boredom of running in circles with no music or audio in my ears. Hopefully, it will help with my ADHD.
• Last, the flat looped surface allows me to practice physical meditation and problem-solving hard things while running easily. I’ll never be short of things to improve on… the growth mindset, y’all!

Racing isn’t the only way to challenge myself; my contrarian fitness-related challenges can feed and nurture my life tasks. Maybe I’m alone here, but let me know if you’ve found this true if you aren’t someone who races or has taken off from racing.