I mentioned in my last post that I was in the middle of 7-10 days off. It\u2019s the first dedicated time off I\u2019ve taken in years, meaning it wasn\u2019t due to injury or illness.<\/p>\n
In addition to no dedicated time off for years, I had spent most of this past spring and early summer training for races, including lots of speed work. Over a three week period in June, I raced three times. The final one was a 10K. During the final mile, while I finished strong, I could tell that my legs needed a break. Because I enjoy summer running so much, I backed off to \u201cmaintenance mileage\u201d and an occasional longer run. By mid-September, I knew I would benefit from an actual break.<\/p>\n
My understanding is that it\u2019s good to take 7-14 days off once per year but there are many frustrating aspects of this. These include that you\u2019re not doing something you enjoy, you\u2019re losing a week of training, and if you go too long, your legs might start to regress from the training they had. All of these frustrations ran through my head but reluctantly, I gave in. To compensate, I ran twice the day before I was going to start my time off.<\/p>\n
When you take time off, whether you do something else during that time period such as bike, swim, etc. depends on you. It also partly depends on the length of the rest period. Given how short this rest period was, I went on one long hike and managed to get a short walk in most days, but I mainly laid off. Were I to go longer, such as two weeks or more, I would sprinkle in some other activities so that I would still be staying in motion.<\/p>\n
By the fourth day of this break, I could tell that my body appreciated it. I wasn\u2019t nearly as stiff when I woke up in the morning and by day eight, my legs felt revved up and ready to go. At the beginning of the time off, I\u2019d decided that I wanted to feel excellent for a day or two prior to starting my running again, just to ensure that the rest had done its full job. So, I took day nine off, then hit the road on day ten.<\/p>\n
Because of how I felt as the break went on, I realized how valuable it was to do this. You might be wondering how, after 25 years of running, I only just now understood this? Even though I know there were times when I took dedicated time off in the distant past, my guess is that from my mid-teens to early twenties, I wasn\u2019t really paying attention to how different my body felt at the beginning versus the end.<\/p>\n
During a period from October 2005 through May 2014, I was doing 20-30 miles per week but not racing and thus not putting my legs through speed workouts. By not engaging in a substantial amount of \u201chard\u201d running and by having a few days off every now and then if I caught a bug, I never felt the need for a longer break. \u00a0In April of 2015, I broke my foot and had four months of involuntary rest. So, there was a long period during my mid-20s to late 30s where I either didn\u2019t feel the need for rest or was forced to rest. This was probably enough to keep my legs from feeling worn down on a deeper level.<\/p>\n
Call it wisdom gained, maturity, or finally going with common sense, but I made it through nine days of rest and I was fairly patient the whole way. My first run back felt pretty good, all things considered, and on the second day back, I did a six-mile run with my neighbor, which also went well. I\u2019ve not used a stopwatch on my runs thus far and though I\u2019m sure I lost a little of my training edge, the flip side is that I gained quite a bit physically in terms of rest and mentally from realizing that this can actually be a good idea. I\u2019ll try to keep the brakes on and only build back up gradually. I looked longingly at the start of the extra 3 mile chunk I can add on to one of my usual courses at work but I held firm and stuck with the shorter run. 3-mile runs are a staple distance so I\u2019ll do five of those per week plus a 6-mile run on the weekend the first couple of weeks, then move up from there.<\/p>\n
There are a few topics I\u2019m looking forward to covering so next week\u2019s will be a surprise.<\/p>\n
Running food review of the week:\u00a0<\/span>(note–gels, bars, chews, and other items affect everyone differently. Try them on a short run before using them for a key training run or race):\u00a0<\/span>H\u00fcma Chia Energy Gel Strawberries<\/a>. I will never eat this again. Generally I like H\u00fcma energy gels, especially on an empty stomach in the morning. However, while this one had a strawberry flavor and while it wasn\u2019t foul, it was odd and not pleasant. On the positive side, it delivered good energy and was easy on the digestive system so no complaints there. But, the flavor was one of the strangest I’ve encountered.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I mentioned in my last post that I was in the middle of 7-10 days off. It\u2019s the first dedicated time off I\u2019ve taken in years, meaning it wasn\u2019t due to injury or illness. In addition to no dedicated time off for years, I had spent most of this past spring and early summer training … <\/p>\n