Rest and Recovery for Runners

The simplest strategies make the biggest difference. It's after 10 p.m. on a Thursday in a midtown Manhattan hotel, where a bunch of the world's fastest runners have descended for the 2013 New York City Marathon. In the middle of the ninth-floor hallway is a shadowy figure lying on the floor.



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Respect Your Rest Days

Forget the idea that rest is only for the weak. Rest is equally as important as that weekly tempo run or long run. Your body needs time to rebuild the muscle tissue that’s broken down with each workout. If you never let your body rest, your fitness level can begin to decline affecting all of your runs, easy and/or quality. No rest is basically a fast forward to overtraining and injury.

 

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Sleep

Lack of sleep is a big cause of fatigue which can increase your chances of overtraining. Your body does most of its repair and rebuilding while you sleep. If you’re not getting enough sleep, then you’re not giving your body time to heal. Sleep requirements can vary from person to person. Teenagers need about 9 hours on average (mine seem to need about 15!). Most adults need seven to 8 hours of sleep a night, although some may need as few as five hours or as many as 10 hours of sleep each day. Fatigue can result when your normal sleeping hours are shortened for whatever reason—stress of a new job, a new baby, exercising too late at night, or that heartburn you got from the five-meat pizza you ate just before bed. If you’re not getting your normal amount of sleep, then you need to back off on your training until your sleep hours are back to normal.

 

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R&R

Rest and recovery is vital. If you are feeling tired, cut back on the training, recover and then build it up again. Always have at least one full day off a week where you do no exercise. I've used more than one rest day as I passed into my 40s. A good longer term plan, that will help you not get over-trained, is to have three weeks hard training, one week easy. This works well to give your body a rest ready for the next three-week cycle.

 

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True Rest and Recovery

You need true down time with complete rest days and active recovery based on your life schedule. The more stress in your life, the greater the need to balance that energy output with recovery for rejuvenation. Investing in rest days, modifying the effort level or distance of your runs on days when you’re feeling spent, balancing the demands of all your workouts, eating quality fuel, performing flexibility work, and getting in quality sleep are all ways to balance your expenditure and performance.

 

Robert's Observations

You don't take a Rest Day when you're tired and worn out; then it's too late.  You take a Rest Day when you're strong.

Robert's Observations

Include rest days and or rest periods in your training plan.

 

Your body needs rest to recover from the challenges of training. Do not attempt any workouts unless you are properly rested, fueled and hydrated. It is better to skip a workout and rest than it is to try and complete a workout when you are fatigued, hungry kor dehydrated.

 

Run On

Muscles don’t become more powerful during the hard sessions but during the recovery. The former tears down, and the later builds up. In other words, you have to go through hell to get to heaven.

Forced Rest Days

Forced Rest Days

 

Rest days that are built into your training schedule are much needed and respected moments of recovery and reflection.

 

But Forced Rest Days, well, that's another case. You know your muscles are shot and cold use a break because yesterday they barely slugged it out with the run. Furthermore, you didn't sleep well which could just be your body screaming at you: Overtrain much! Throw in your siesta that just went on and on and left you feel headached and lethargic.

 

You come to the one thing you need to do, you know you have to do, but can't seem to pull the trigger on.

 

...take an unscripted day off...

 

You sit on the coach and star at the blazing sun crossing over your neighboring buildings. You can almost feel the crisp chill in the spring night coming. But you shake it off, you head throbs like an old lady jabbing you for attention with her umbrella.

 

You began the process of listing all the reasons that you shouldn't run, that taking this rest day is a GOOD thing for your training.

 

Mine begin something like this:

• You've done four long runs, each over 25k, for the last four weeks.

• You ran crappy on your fifth long run yesterday, even with hitting your target pace, and it was no fun struggling home.
• You skipped hill repeats and tempo runs last week to throw more kilometers on the barbie.
• You haven't been sleeping well for the last three weeks. (Not your fault and your dealing with the noise.)
• You've got a long view of things. You've got no race on the horizon.
• You're 42 and, let's be serious, you could do with a break once and a while from the endless running.

 

...the list goes on and on...

 

And STILL I need to go to trickery to get myself to forget about running.

 

It is, as of these words, 18.08 or 6pm, and the best way to force myself to not run is to go down to the local cafe and have a coke and some of their homemade pasta and cheese. With a bellyful of food and drink, and some diverting wifi, I will be stuck there for an hour or two and by then I will too "crippled" to go run. Having eaten and diverted myself with Internet news, I will happily walk up to my apartment, and sleep. Sleep to run another day.

 

And so here I am, coke in hand, thinking about tomorrow. As recovery days go today is not so bad. Tomorrow, as a hard day, will benefit from today's forced inactivity. Tonight I will gorge on pasta and mushroom meat sauce, and Game of Thrones and read Deadline. Recharging can be difficult but also pleasing, it's all in the planning.

 

Here's hoping your run is fun and inspiring. It seems my rest has been both.

 

Ciao from Madrid!

Rest On

Some old wounds never truly heal, and bleed again at the slightest word.

-Game of Thrones

Sleep is Key

The difference between running 30k and running 3k is sleep. Without it, you can't really do either.

Rest Day

Lots of classes and errands and such, so it's a chinese night with lots of sleep after.

Hope you had a great run today!

Ciao

Monday Morning Blues

I had a lot of trouble sleeping last night. The aches in my legs just seemed to get worse and worse as the night went on. So I woke tired and lethargic. I did get up, fully ready to go out. I made it as far as grabbing my gear, but then it just hit me. I need to assess my body. Am I ready for a recovery run or a day off? Yesterday was hard. But so hard? But I'm 42. Well so what! Yet shouldn't I take it easy? I can switch Wednesday for today, can't I ? Yet I ALWAYS have tightness and pain after a day off, do I want that tomorrow?

As I stands... I've got a few hours to make up my mind. There's a lot going on today, between classes and errands, that I will be walking around and up steps and down steps. So I will be better able to judge my legs.

But a final word. I should not be fearful of taking a day off. It's not so unnatural or detrimental.

7am Run

First good run since 16-1-12

My GPS lock failed on my NEW Nike.  Grrr.

I did my One Hill run in the freezing cold.  It was windy dark.  I saw two other runners on the way, but I was mostly on my own.

I didn't sweat until I stopped to stretch out my legs behind the Temple.  Then it was a waterfall.

My left foot began to hurt around my old piso.  But the right ankle was weak and sore on the hill.  Left ankle hurt at the top of the hill.

I'm going to rest tomorrow.  Maybe run on Monday if no pain.

I really hate this enforced laziness.  I WANT to run.

Going to shower for 15 MINUTES and relax.

Then work.

How do I know I need a Rest Day?

Lie down, close your eyes and slowly count to 60. “If you make it to 60 seconds without dozing off, then go for the run,” says Budd Coates, a 2:13 marathoner who’s qualified for the Olympic trials four times. “But if you fall asleep, that’s okay. You probably need the rest.”