I'm a 43 year old male and I run between 35-45 miles per week, training for new york has gone really well to date and I've missed no sessions (including a 20 miles last sunday). Last night while out I managed to twist my ankle, it's sore today but I'm sure it will recover in time for New York marathon in 18 days. My question is if I miss these last two weeks, will it have much effect on my overall fitness?
Comments
I'm no expert... but from what I've read, the average super keen runner cannot bring themselves to taper enough. If you're one of them, then an enforced rest might actually help!
I trust you're following the normal RICE treatment.
And if I had one other piece of obvious advice, you've spent loads on plane tickets, hotel, etc etc.... why not treat yourself to a few quid on a good sports physio.
Wish you all the best.
Doing all the obvious, RICE etc, will try swimming to maintain my fitness in the coming weeks....
As others have said, rest will be the best thing for you. You complete your last long run, so you'd be in maintenance mode at the moment if you were fit & healthy.
I remember reading something about it taking two weeks for your body to incorporate the training effect, so you can't improve your race performance in the last two weeks (but it is possible to adversely affect it). Whilst doing a quick google to try and find the source, I found this article about the effect of breaks in training which helps quantify the impact:
http://runnersconnect.net/running-injury-prevention/losing-running-fitness/
As it says, a couple of weeks isn't going to have a significant impact
Thanks for the advice, feel alot more confident about the race