♠ Posted by Paul Naylor at 10:52 PM
Resting is just as important as the workouts themselves, the same is true after completing a long distance race. For many runners, they either want to start training for the next race, right after they have finished their race. This is common for many runners, even if you're not a ultra competitive runner. There is that sense of wanting to do more, or get started before your body is ready to. Even with weekly workouts, some may think that if they have several long runs in the week is going to increase their endurance and speed. Now there is some truth to that, but it has to be built up slowly and with strength training.
Resting after workouts
When it comes to workouts during the week, many trainers have different approaches to the types of workouts to do. One thing that I think they can all agree on though, is the rest that needs to be taken after a harder workout. A hard workout can be considered a long run, interval workout, or hard tempo run. These workouts are designed to increase speed and endurance by working the muscles and increasing the heart rate. And after one completes one of these workouts, the body is very spent, and needs time to recover. Very similar to the body needing to recovery after a intense body building workout.
A runner will feel the temptation to do another hard running workout the next day. In the mind of many, this will make sense to make a faster runner. However, by not allowing the body to rest, one is increasing the chances of injuries to muscles, joints, tendons, etc..
Resting after races
Same principles go for races as well, and in some cases, more rest is needed. The reason that more rest is sometimes needed is because runners will go as hard as they can for the race. They have built up the mindset to not leave anything on the table when they get to the finish line: No Regrets. Because of this mindset, runners will push their bodies harder than they did in their workouts. Which means that they work their muscles harder, their joints take more of a beating, and heart rates are more elevated than what they were in training.
So when an runner usually took a few days to recover from a long run, more time may be needed to recover from a race. More time to recover from the beating that the body has taken. And the temptation to will still be there to start working towards the next rest. Usually when they want to start is the following week after the race. Runners must calm themselves to make sure they get enough time for their bodies to recover.
Some may ask, how much time is needed to recover. Its different for every runner. A good rule of thumb is two days for a hard workout during the week. If you need to run during the week after hard workouts, use easy days, lower mileage with much slower pace. And for races, a good time from to rest is usually a week. Some case you need longer than a week. But listen to you body, not necessarily your mind. If you go out for a worlout, and you body feels that its not up for a hard pace, DON'T PUSH IT. You don't want to run the risk of injury.
After you have been running for a while, you'll see how the rest days are helping just as much as the workouts. This is sometimes a hard concept to get use to, but once runners start seeing the benefit, their running performance will greatly improve.
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