Recovery is not a dirty word or learn from my mistakes.

Today begins a recovery week on my training schedule.  In the past I never had recovery weeks or days.  I never crossed trained as part of recovery.  Basically I ran because I was a runner.  I was hardcore and taking breaks and slowing down was for wimps.  Which I definitely was not.  I was logging 50-60 miles a week on an ongoing basis.  That's great if you are training for a marathon, but, I wasn't.  I didn't need to be training so hard, but, I was a runner and well runners run, don't they?  However, all that running came with at a cost.  I almost tore my Achilles tendon  Had it not been for a doctor that gave me a wake up call I may not be able to run today.  He gave me two choice stop running & heal or continue to run and tear it completely and require surgery, then you won't be able to run again.  In case you are wondering I went chose option A.   It took me getting to the point of not really having a choice to make me take some time to recover.  Learn from my mistake.  God designed our bodies to be active and move, but, he also designed us to take rest.  He himself even rested.

You may be asking yourself what does she mean recovery.  Well if you are the typically fitness enthusiast who goes to the gym 4-5 times/week and works out for an hour or less, as long as you are not stressing the same muscle group more than every 48 hours you are getting adequate recovery.  In other words don't work out the same muscle group on back to back days.  If however you are one of the slightly insane (I include myself in this category) that enjoys training for endurance events (i.e. half/ full marathons or 100 mile bike rides) you need a bit more structure to your recovery.  Now recovery & rest are not necessarily the same thing but they are not mutually exclusive either.  Typically a recovery consist of active rest.  You are still working out but you are not stressing the muscles.  You might cross train in a compatible method (i.e. water jogging or an elliptical machine) or you may simple temper your workouts by slowing down your pace and cutting back on time or distance.  I'm a train for time not distance sort (but that is for another blog currently forming in my mind).    so back to recovery weeks.  So you run slower and shorter.  The object is to be moving but not presenting the body with anything it can not easily endure.  Ask yourself could I easily speed up my pace or continue to run even further, does this run feel like a piece of cake, like I'm hardly working at all?  Then you are recovering.

When do you have a recovery week?  You should take a recovery week immediately following a major event/race or an extremely long  (i.e. added miles) or stressful week of training (i.e. a lot of speed work, etc). It is also a good idea to go into "recovery mode when nursing a cold.   A cold doesn't mean you have to stop training.  So long as you are not running a fever and you feel up to it you can go run, but, it is a good idea to use the recovery workout model for these types of workouts.

In short by taking recovery weeks and/or days you can help stay injuries, improve physical fitness/ endurance,  keep from getting burned out and most importantly make it to the finish line on race day.    So don't think of recovery as a dirty word and it is most definitely not wimpy to take recovery weeks.