[johnnycarroll1]

How long does your fitness actually last? If i had some time off from running how long would it be until i noticed a drop in my fitness?

 

[richardsimkiss]

I think it varies massively from person to person... and also how close you are to reaching your full fitness potential.

e.g. If you were jogging 3 times a week, just to keep yourself ticking over, and then had 2 weeks to total rest, you could probably return to the same training and barely notice any difference in your fitness levels at all.

However, if you were at the top of your game, training hard with long runs and speedwork, doing say 40miles per week, and had 2 weeks of total rest, you'd probably struggle to return to the same level of training and have to build back up to that level of fitness.

If you don't mind me being nosey... what sort of training level are you particularly referring to, and how much of a rest?

 

[johnnycarroll1]

I've currently been training for the Robin hood half marathon for 2 months now. I've been averaging around 35 miles a week, with interval and fartlek training as well. My fitness at the minute is the best it's ever been. With the half marathon on sunday i want a little deserved rest after. I also don't want to loose all the hard effort that i've put in over the last 2 months.

 

[richardsimkiss]

Well the best thing is that isn't doesn't take half as long to get fitness back as it does to gain it for the first time... so if you race on a Sunday, and say take a week off, maybe have an easy few miles here and there, then maybe a 70% of your nomral training the week after, and back to normal training after that, I don't think you'll notice much of a loss if anything at all...

Besides, you NEED to rest after a race, if you ran a half at full effort and carried on with your normal training, you'd be asking for trouble

 

[johnnycarroll1]

That sounds like good news. The half marathon started as a drunken bet, once you start noticing gains in your fitness you get the bug for it. Now i don't want to give it up!

 

[Revenged]

I've currently been training for the Robin hood half marathon for 2 months now. I've been averaging around 35 miles a week, with interval and fartlek training as well. My fitness at the minute is the best it's ever been. With the half marathon on sunday i want a little deserved rest after. I also don't want to loose all the hard effort that i've put in over the last 2 months.

I am in a similar position. What I have been doing is maintaining the milage but ditching tempo runs and speedwork runs. You could try that.