Recovery

So what’s this mythical thing that coaches bang on about then?

In my and plenty of other coaches opinion, recovery is the single most important aspect of training. That includes whether you are training for something specific or just ‘ticking along’ – when most people tend to forget about easy weeks and rest days. Why is recovery so important? Well there are several reasons:

1. Training Adaptations. These are the long-term physiological changes resulting from consistent training, and are a direct consequence of the stress-recovery-adaptation cycle.
   • Note that adaptation happens after adequate recovery, not the hard session or training block that stresses the body beyond it’s normal load. Without adequate recovery, the body may not be able to adapt fully, leading to plateaus or even overtraining.
2. Injury Avoidance. When we train, muscle tissue damage occurs and adequate recovery allows repair and growth of new muscle fibres.
   • Without adequate recovery, those micro muscle tears will progress and could easily lead to a sprain, strain or tear of the muscle. Even small deteriorations in the health of a muscle impair the stablising power of those muscles and can lead to injuries to related tendons, ligament or joints – either because of subtle changes to your running gait or by the inability to respond to trips & stumbles.
3. Fatigue. As we train for lengthy periods, the cumulative effects on energy systems can soon mount up. It’s important to give the body a chance to recharge and replenish it’s energy stores.
   • Fatigue can occur on multiple levels – both physiological and psychological. Being tired during a block of training is sometimes unavoidable, but being tired for prolonged periods can be very damaging to both physical and mental health. Chronic fatigue is a debilitating condition.

Rest, Recovery… What’s the difference?

Broadly speaking there are 4 main types of recovery and all are needed in combination:

1. Active Recovery. This is when you do something less intense than your main training activity.
   • This may be a gentle recovery run – not too long and at a slow pace (and I mean really slow – barely a jog is good – most people run way too fast on their ‘recovery’). Alternatively, and often better: a walk, gentle cycle or swim can be a great recovery activity. Low intensity and time is key.
   • I like to say “Don’t do nothing, do different”.
2. Passive Recovery. We know this as rest and it’s really important!
   • Resting – literally doing nothing is a key part of recovery – it’s how the body recharges and repairs.
   • Sleep – most important of all rest is sleep. Sleep is when body tissues repair and it’s also when ‘muscle memory’ occurs – good for improving running efficiency.
3. Nutrition. Your body needs fuel for the training you’re doing. This is a complex topic, but broadly speaking: Carbs before a session; Protein after.
   • Carbohydrate is what our muscles need to perform exercise – so ensure you’ve topped up before a session
   • Protein is what the body needs to repair muscle micro trauma – so a protein rich post run meal is a great way to start recovery.
   • Calorie deficiency, fasting, trying to combine ‘weight loss’ with intense training and exclusion diets are rarely good strategies. Consult a nutritionist for specialist advice.
4. Hydration. Sometimes lumped in with nutrition, but these really are two separate topics. Plain & simple, the body needs to be well hydrated for optimum performance.
   • Make sure you go into a session or race well hydrated.
   • After a session or race, you will have become dehydrated – even if you drank regularly throughout. Make sure you gradually replace the lost fluids over the hours and days that follow.

Practical tips for recovery

Recovery needs can differ vastly depending on the individual athlete so specific guidance is not appropriate. Also, what one person does, is not necessarily a) good practice or b) right for someone else. However, some general guidelines are helpful:

• Sleep – make sure you get enough. Consider monitoring your sleep quality & quantity – technology options are available (e.g. Garmin) but a sleep diary is just as good and often better – forcing you to self-evaluate how rested you feel and what might have influenced that.
• Build rest & recovery days into your weekly schedule. Make sure you take adequate rest and recovery days. For example, try not to have too many consecutive days of intense sessions or high volume. Regardless of how many days a week you train, try to space the bigger sessions out. Track intervals followed by a threshold run, then hills then your longest run of the training block all on consecutive days is a recipe for overload, fatigue & injury. Perhaps intervals, easy recovery run, rest day, hills, swim or walk, long run is a better pattern. If you get a personalised training plan, your coach should help to plan in rest & recovery as well as the sessions themselves!
• Easy weeks. These are really important as part of the stress-recovery-adaptation cycle. Avoiding injury is a good enough reason, but a lot of people get lured into the misnomer that if they ease back, their performance gains will be lost. It seems counter-intuitive but the EXACT OPPOSITE is actually the case. If you don’t ease back and allow those adaptations to take place, your performance will likely plateau or worse, decrease. Furthermore, you risk the cumulative effect of fatigue meaning lower capacity for good quality training in the subsequent blocks. Worst case, you may slide towards chronic fatigue. Easy week should be every 4th or 5th week in a training block and can be as simple as dropping a session or run, reducing the overall volume and intensity by a couple of notches. So if you ran 30 miles in 5 sessions – 2 of which were high intensity (e.g intervals & tempo run) the week before, perhaps drop to 4 sessions and 22-25 miles: skip the interval session, make your tempo run a steady or recovery run, reduce your long run by 3 miles or so and you should reap the benefits.
• Recovery after a race. This is the one that people always forget. They get caught up in the euphoria of completing a race and jump straight back into training. Remember that not only have you just completed a race at high intensity, but that it was likely off the back of an extended period of dedicated training. If you’ve just run a marathon, this is especially true – possibly 16 weeks or more of hard graft then several hours of effort (along with all the pre-race adrenaline, stress and logistics, and dare I say it the post race euphoria & celebrating which can also take its toll). YOUR BODY NEEDS A REST! Elite athletes will almost always take a whole month off, once a year after their peak target race, event or championships. And they have a whole team around them keeping them in tip-top shape through their training whereas most of us don’t! There is often a bit of bravado, be it amongst club mates or perhaps the pressures of Strava: ‘Recovery run after yesterday – legs feel surprisingly OK’ (Strava activity names always lie 😉 ). Try to ignore it – if you’re going to follow advice, follow coaching advice and take time to recovery properly. There are various studies around how long it takes to properly recover from intense effort. Some say one day per mile run, some say one week for every hour of effort. Either way, if you run a marathon in 3-4 hours, that points to 3-4 weeks to fully recover. It’s important to note that doesn’t necessarily mean 4 weeks’ rest! My advice is as follows:
  • For 3-5 days: Avoid running; prioritise rest, sleep, hydration and replenishing carbs & protein. Gentle walking, swimming or cycling and warm baths can help increase the blood flow without impact on damaged muscles. A massage can be good (day 4 or 5, not before)
  • 6-10 days: Try a gentle recovery run to see where you are. If it’s painful, you’re not ready. If it’s pain-free then great – but it DOES NOT mean you’re recovered.
  • End of week 2 & week 3: Reintroduce running gradually. Keep the intensity and volume LOW and take more rest days between.
  • Week 4: Start to reintroduce some harder sessions and returning to your ‘normal’ training load. Plan for your next race by starting a new training plan – not straight back into the high volume of the marathon training.

If you don’t believe the coach, take it from a fellow runner (ok, they are both me, but you get the picture…). Last year at the end of October I ran Marathon Eryri. For the 20 weeks leading up to it, I ran an average of 112 miles per 4 weeks. I took a whole week off running then the next 4 weeks ran only a couple of times a week (32 miles total). The following 4 weeks only increased slightly to 60 miles total with barely any high intensity stuff. In fact, in those 8 weeks up to Christmas, it’s fair to say I indulged quite heavily in fuelling & rehydration and running took a back seat. After the new year, I gradually increased the intensity, still keeping volumes much lower than the marathon blocks and did a fair bit of strength work to improve my throwing. The results? All time PBs in 1500m, 5km and Half Marathon in the past couple of months. What’s the magic recipe? I’d recovered properly and was ready to go again.

If you don’t believe the athlete either, then maybe take a look at this evidence-based, sports science led guidance from the UK Sports Performance and English Institute of Sport.