Recovery Is Part of Training

Runners are generally pretty good at doing the work. We are often less good at recognising that recovery is part of that work.

It is easy to think that improvement comes from squeezing another run into the week, adding a few kilometres, or pushing through tired legs. Training, however, is only the stimulus. The adaptation happens afterwards, when your body has the opportunity to recover.

That does not mean you need to spend your rest days lying on the couch. It means paying attention to how your body is responding to training and being prepared to adjust when necessary.

A few things matter more than most:

• Get enough sleep, particularly after harder sessions and long runs.

• Eat and hydrate properly after training.

• Keep easy days genuinely easy.

• Be prepared to shorten or change a session when fatigue is accumulating.

• Remember that an occasional rest day will not cost you fitness.

One of the biggest mistakes runners make is treating tiredness as a sign that they need to train harder. Sometimes it is simply a sign that the training is working and your body needs time to absorb it.

Recovery becomes particularly important when you are racing regularly. A hard 5km, 10km or half marathon is still a hard training load, even if it does not appear on your program as a session.

The aim is not to see how much training you can survive. The aim is to find the amount of training you can consistently recover from. Your fitness, built up fatigue and muscular strength are all important contributors how much training you can absorb and your coach can help you manage this😉.

Train hard when it matters, recover properly when it matters, and give your body the opportunity to get fitter.

See you out there.