I'm normally a morning runner- with all the stuff going on in life, I've found that if I don't get my runs in first thing in the morning, they have a tendency to not happen. On the weekends however, that changes. With my alarm clock going off at 4:45am on weekdays, there's no way I'm getting up that early on a Saturday or Sunday, so sometimes my Saturday or Sunday runs end up happening later in the day, which is what happened yesterday- I didn't go out until 3:40pm, and got home at 6:00 after 27.5km of hills and snowy country roads.
This morning I had a recovery paced 13km on the schedule, but when I woke up for that, my legs were feeling thrashed- 11hrs recovery after a tough run like I did yesterday just wasn't enough. That got me thinking- in order to really optimize training, I need to give though to when I do my runs.
Getting out for a pre-dawn run every day works, since I generally have a full day's recovery between runs, but when I start to mix up my schedule, I can end up with much less recovery time than necessary. It wouldn't have been as big a deal on a run like I had on the schedule for today where it was just slow and easy, but if I had a speed session scheduled, it would have been a disastrous training session.
When training for marathons, we often think of the training just as the running, but it's the recovery too, and not just the rest days. The amount of hours you get between runs is quite important.
Sometimes (often) life gets in the way and you've got to do what you've got to do, but if you have the luxury of planning the times of your runs, give some thought to hours of recovery- try to not schedule a tough morning run after a tough run the evening before (unless you're specifically working on running on tired legs). Those few extra hours you can give yourself to recover can make a big difference in your performance in your training session.
This morning I had a recovery paced 13km on the schedule, but when I woke up for that, my legs were feeling thrashed- 11hrs recovery after a tough run like I did yesterday just wasn't enough. That got me thinking- in order to really optimize training, I need to give though to when I do my runs.
Getting out for a pre-dawn run every day works, since I generally have a full day's recovery between runs, but when I start to mix up my schedule, I can end up with much less recovery time than necessary. It wouldn't have been as big a deal on a run like I had on the schedule for today where it was just slow and easy, but if I had a speed session scheduled, it would have been a disastrous training session.
When training for marathons, we often think of the training just as the running, but it's the recovery too, and not just the rest days. The amount of hours you get between runs is quite important.
Sometimes (often) life gets in the way and you've got to do what you've got to do, but if you have the luxury of planning the times of your runs, give some thought to hours of recovery- try to not schedule a tough morning run after a tough run the evening before (unless you're specifically working on running on tired legs). Those few extra hours you can give yourself to recover can make a big difference in your performance in your training session.