In my heart, I still feel like I’m in my 20s, and can just go run and train as much as I can endure without a problem. If I feel like I have the cardiovascular capacity to run for an hour after a long break, why shouldn’t I?
Last week, when I went to run for the first time after a break, I thought I’d take it extra easy and start with 25min. It seemed very little and already very conservative, and it felt good after the run, too. The next day, I woke up to sore Achilles tendons, resulting in having to skip the run for the remainder of the week — injury on its way after the first day.
At the moment of starting this blog, I had not been training for 3 months – first 2 months of it, I was literally sedentary due to various viruses that all hit me in a row. After mostly recovering, I’ve been walking around 30 minutes on most working days, except for the one additional week of another virus! So, for 2 months, I was completely inactive, followed by 3-4 weeks with very light physical activity, and last week, I started training again.
Before all these viruses that came in a row, I had quite a decent routine, running + doing strength exercises 3 times a week and also taking part in pole acrobatics classes for upper body strength and mobility. Pole training is for anyone, by the way – also for those who don’t have the strength to lift themselves up much (yet)!
One of the most important parts of training for longevity for me is avoiding injuries. It’s extremely frustrating to not be able to train at all due to waiting for an injury to heal. One of the key points why Jeannie Rice (see this post to see how she is relevant) has been able to stay so active at her age is that she has had very few injuries during all those years!
Especially in older age, not being able to move around due to injuries can cause muscle mass to decrease fast, and the physical fitness can decline quickly. The setback can be quite hard, both physically and emotionally, so avoiding injuries in the first place makes things much simpler.
There’s a reason why “feeling fine” after training can be deceiving after a break. Cardiovascular fitness comes back faster — the heart and lungs adapt within weeks. The muscles can regain strength and tolerance also within weeks. But tendons and other connective tissues are much slower to adapt — it happens within months, not weeks.
Tendons have lower blood supply, and collagen turnover is slow, so a tendon that’s been barely used for 3 months won’t be back in shape even if the lungs and calf muscles are ready (see Magnusson & Kjaer, 2019, The impact of loading, unloading, ageing and injury on the human tendon for a proper deep dive). This difference is why it’s so easy to get injured after a break.
What I learned from it was that to avoid injuries, it’s very important to use micro-progression when training for long-term — increasing the amount just a tiiiiny bit to be as sure as possible there’s no overdoing. I went for a run again, just for 15min and that was okay for my tendons. So, I’ll keep it at 15min for a week, and then increase the amount only 5-10min per week (not per run).
Once I’m back to something like 40min runs, I’ll drop the progression rate to 5min/week — because as the general weekly load gets bigger, even a 10min jump can become relatively big. A recent BJSM cohort study by Frandsen et al. (2025) found that single run spikes beyond 10% of your longest run in the past 30 days are associated with a higher injury rate — micro-progression helps here. Also, every 4th week will be a deload week, with lower volume to give the tendons some time to actually catch up.
Restarting with strength training was smoother — which makes sense considering minimal impacts on the tendons and the main focus on the muscles. I did half of my pre-break routine without any issues, and this week, I was able to do the full routine but with simpler versions of each exercise.
Even if it feels completely okay, and I really want to run more, I will stick to it, as progressing without injuries is the main goal, it doesn’t have to be progressing fast! After all, that’s the good thing about training for being strong and active for the long term — I have some decades ahead of me for it, so there’s no rush right now.
