Another week, another 35 kilometers in the pocket. This was my 4th week of maintaining this level of kilometers. Next week I will have a bit of a break week, decreasing the distances that I will. The reason for this being is that I am feeling some aches and pains all over my body. Especially my knees and hamstrings are having a seriously hard time while I’m running. As a result, I looked into recovery weeks for runners.
Importance of recovery weeks
Recovery weeks are important for runners, for both the body and mind of a runner. The weekly recovery days aren’t enough for the body to heal properly from intense training, therefore, having recovery weeks is important to give the body (and mind) time to rest and heal.
When we runners are hitting the pavement we put our bodies through quite some stress. If you don’t give your body enough time to heal you can experience extreme fatigue (getting tired from easy runs), start to get injured, get irritable or frustrated regarding your training, and your performance plateaus. If the body has time to heal properly, it can become more efficient for future training sessions, and races. This is a phenomenon called supercompensation. It entails that the body not only returns but exceeds its pre-training state i.e. becomes more efficient.
Besides the positive effects on your physical, a recovery week is also needed for your mental state. Our brain cannot differentiate between the types of stress we are enduring, so stress from work is the same, as the stress we feel for training for a race. This is maybe the hardest part for me to realize that my mind needs a rest from the stress that I give it with my training. The guilt sets in, and I feel like I’ve not done enough. As a consequence, I start to feel down, so it is imperative for me personally, that I am conscious of how important recovery is.
How to do a recovery week
In general training cycles for a race, are 3 weeks of training and 1 de-load week. Some runners who are more injury-prone, or more easily fatigued, may opt for a cycle of 2 weeks of intense training, and 1 week of recovery. If you are still building your base you can try a cycle of 6-8 weeks.
There are also some varied opinions on what a down week is. Some say that true recovery only comes from no running at all. Instead, they opt for alternative forms of exercise such as swimming or cycling. On the other hand, some voices say recovery can also be achieved when decreasing the volume of training by 10%-40%.
Whatever you choose it is important that you truly listen to your body and listen to it. giving it the needed rest, so you can crush your goals in the next training block.
What I opted for
I am decreasing my training and intensity volume by 10-20%. This means that I will do no speed work and more easy runs. The distance of the runs will also be shorter. I will try to focus more on other hobbies such as writing to give myself a mental break from the stress of training.
I did 3 sessions, 1 speed session, 1 easy run, and 1 long run—the overview you can find below.
See you next week as I embark on trying to recover as much as possible this week!