The Blog Of Eric Herdman

It’s funny but every time I get over an injury I feel the need to build my base back up. It’s been a HUGE mistake. However, the injury before last taught me a valuable lesson. That lesson is: that I don’t need to build my base back up. I kept extremely fit during my layoff by cycling, lifting and rowing as much as 300-400 mile per week of cycling, three weight sessions a week and Airdyne work out the ass. The result?!? My base never went away. I discovered this by going out for runs, pushing up the distance/time and not ever really reaching a point of failure (or where I hit some sort of a wall). I simply could just keep running.

However, and it is a BIG HOWEVER. What I did need to work on was my Neural pathways (i.e. the ability [brain signals to the key organs, muscles, etc...] to run efficiently and remind my body what is takes to run a fucking long way). Secondarily, I need to give my musculoskeletal system the wake up call that “hey the big guy is running again, get your shit together.” I other words, my body needed time to adjust to the “load” and stress of running. This does take time. Not as long as building a base but it takes a while and everybody moves a a different rate of alerting the body to these stressors.

So, with all of that said… I am back to running and running okay. But my focus is on awaking these dormant running systems and get them on notice that running is happening again. I am treating it like an off-season not a base building period. I am letting fatigue, soreness and overall drive dictate my time/distance, pace, heart rate and course that I run. I have also held my body a specific weight and I have read plenty of research that holding the body to a specific weight (against its will) can cause health issues and injury. I am allowing a 4-7 pound weight gain to take place over the next 3 weeks. If what I have studied over the past 2 years is correct. The combination of NON base building, but reminding my body of what we are doing here and allowing the body fat percentage to climb ever so slightly should result in a human machine that is ready for some serious training the first part of 2010.