Running Recovery Days
Julian, owner of specialist running store Metres to Miles in Epworth was on hand to answer a few questions about rest and recovery days from training and running.
How did you determine when to take a rest day from training?
Your body does remind you if you need to rest, and from my experience that can be too late as a reminder could be a symptom of stresses from training.
So, my advice is having a plan for your training, be prepared to make that plan flexible and record and analyse your training load regularly. The key is to know your own body and fitness status. Oh, and your sports watch shouldn’t be the thing telling you to rest!
I did record my resting heart rate – maybe not daily, but was also aware of aspects like my body mass and at least equally important was my state of fatigue, tiredness and general mood, and importantly, appetite to train. I would also closely monitor muscle fatigue and tightness. I ran on very tired legs and sometimes tightness too. That is not necessarily a problem. But it was easy to attribute that to a recent session or race and not a real surprise. If it was unexpected then it was likely a plan would need adjusting to incorporate additional rest or recovery.
What benefits do you gain from resting?
You can train harder. I had blocks of training when I was racing years ago, topping 100 and 120 miles per week. But I also had weeks where I ran 30 or 40 miles per week. I often managed a rest day at 100 miles or more.
You can’t train hard every week. Every week should be different anyway. I looked forward to a rest day, it was earned. It also gave me opportunity to catch-up on things that you maybe struggled to do in amongst the days where you were training. These things can build up and end up being a stress.
So, rest days also enable you to alleviate other stress loads by keeping on top of other things in life. I would regularly have a sports massage on rest days too. The best athletes, know how to rest as well as when to rest. Teach yourself and discipline yourself to rest.
Do you have tips for those training hard for a race and planning rest days?
Another key attribute of successful athletes is patience.
The best athletes I trained with and raced against often ‘flew beneath the radar’ never appearing to do anything particularly special. That was normally because they had a long, medium and short term plan – which inevitably took time to achieve. Working to a new training and racing goal comes in progressive steps and takes time. Rest is important and has to be worked in to that plan.
As you train harder or approach that race day, rest becomes increasingly important. You shouldn’t forget the training miles you’ve logged as you approach that race, it’s miles you’ve banked and it’s soon time to cash those in. But neither should you be reminded of them when the gun goes, with fatigue and tiredness already in those legs. If you are, then chances are you’ve cut a corner and not planned in those important rest days!
Metres to Miles web site can be found HERE
Details of our races can be found HERE
