Recovery

If there is one thing that I will take away from this marathon cycle it is the importance of the recovery run. Some may refer to all this extra mileage as junk miles, but I swear by the slow, easy, runs that get my blood flowing and aid in rebuilding my body. After a hard effort like a 20 mile run I need at least 3 workouts dedicated to just recovery. This year my main goal was to become strong runner and to re evaluated the way I train based on how my body reacts to the stress of running. In the past I did way too many hard runs not leaving any time for recovery. For recovery days I have been trying to do an easy mountain bike ride the day after my long run (Saturday) followed by the next 2 days at recovery pace. Those next 2 days may include 4 workouts at this pace, but I feel that as long as I am moving, and do not put any additional strain on my body, I can recover for my Wednesday track workout. Running an easy 1 hour run in the morning and a 30 - 40 minute at night is essential to being able to train at this intensity. With 2-3 hard runs a week I try to keep my 18 plus mile long runs on a 10 day cycle so that I can recover and perform the other workouts on my training plan without risking burnout or injury. Its all about learning about how your body works and adapting a training plan to your specific needs and goals. In a couple of weeks I am going to run my last long hard 22 mile run and follow that run up with my final hard 10 mile time trial 7 days later. Note = On Wednesday night I ran my 25x200 meter workout.. During the warm up I was still a little sore, but as I started the workout I started to feel better. I am still not sure if it was the 71 miles plus mountain biking that killed me last week or the 20 mile finish fast run on Saturday. I definitely needed 3-4 days of easy running just to be able workout, I imagine I would need a full week to be able to race. I guess we will find out when the bridge run comes up the week after my final long run. At least I know I am coming down in volume a little bit before the 22 miler so I will not be so shot before during and after. We will see. This year has been quite the learning experience.