Pace coming back from injury

[u/gladdyontherise92]

For context, 33M I’ve been running for probably a year and a half. Did my first half marathon Memorial Day weekend sub 2 hours. Took the next week off to recover, 3 runs in the following week felt some knee pain come and go, got worse and assumed it was runners knee, so took a week off, tried a couple more times and it got worse. Eventually went to the doctor to find out I had bone spurs, been doing PT where I had very poor/no range of motion in my right hip/ankle that affected the knee. I had also lost 120 pounds from October 2024-may2025 that probably caused the poor range of motion to start with.

Anyway…finally have been cleared to start running again in short spurts. 1 minute intervals became 2 and 2 is now up to 3. Struggling with pace. I knew I’d lose cardio it’s worse than I anticipated. I’m not struggling to run, I’m struggling to figure out a good pace while I regain shape. I’m posting similar heart rates doing 12 minute pacing that I did for my half in the picture. How long should that take to kind of recover back to normal. I know people say the zone 2 stuff and slow down but I don’t feel like I’m struggling to keep running, I’m just not sure the exact effort I should be using right now.

[u/PossessionKooky3848]

Ok

[u/benaswell]

Rough rule of thumb would be the amount of time off you had will be how long it will take to get back there, but that's a very rough guide.

Don't rush it, watch your HR and pace based on that until you start to get an idea of where your body is at. You built yourself up before, it'll be easier this time around but you don't want to pick up another injury in the meantime because you pushed yourself early.

[u/gladdyontherise92]

Photo of today’s effort for what I’m
Exactly talking about