The Importance of the Recovery/Easy Run
/THE KENYANS
My first year of collegiate Cross Country was rough. As a matter of fact, the first day of practice was the morning after I had just arrived back to the States from Thailand.
3 hour drive back home + 6am workout = loads of fun
If a 20 something hour flight wasn't enough to make running miserable, the fact that it was an 8 mile Steady State on hills was. I remember just thinking to myself, "don't be last, don't be last." In front of me were two Kenyan runners, their body mechanics moved flawlessly. They were born to run, it was implanted in their DNA, they clearly had something I did not. I took it upon myself to probe them for every piece of advice I could get. The day after the steady state, we were on an easy run. So, I kind of casually pulled up beside them and tried to start up a conversation. They were literally the most friendly and joyful people I have ever met. They taught me a plethora of tips about distance running over the course of the season. One of the first things they taught me though was the importance of the recovery/easy run.
thanksgiving kenyan style
GO SLOW
So we are on this easy run, and I mean we can't be going faster than a 9:30 pace. Which is insane after I watched them drop sub 6:00s like it was nothing over the course of 8 miles the day before. I am fairly sore at this point, but this is maybe a 4 mile run. So I am having a difficult time to slow my pace down to that slow. I proceeded to inquire them about their reasoning. Basically what they said was, "When you are suppose to go slow, go slow; when you are suppose to go fast, go fast." At face value, you are probably thinking what I thought in that moment. "Yeah, no crap." Over the season though, the words gained more and more weight.
RUNNING THE EXTREMES
Before I tell you why you should abide by the easy run, I want to tell you why you don't want to skip it. Throughout the season we had a few runners who would miss practice here and there. Sometimes for injuries, personal issues, or academic problems, but when they came back to practice they would always do the same thing. After a week or two of not practicing, they could not keep up on the workout days. They would be at the back of the pack or either not able to finish at all. However, on the recovery run the day after, they would be pushing a 7:00-7:30 pace. Could we keep up, of course, many of us would run out with them. But we would soon learn our lesson when we'd have a bad workout the next week or a bad long run that weekend. The athletes who would miss practice, ended up having pretty bad seasons because they continually got slower on their workout days while getting faster on the easy days. This ends up being close to what the weeks average paces look like on a graph. The guys who ran the easy runs fast end up having a smaller deviation from the mean. Where as the ones who took the easy runs slow had a very large deviation from the mean.
SIMULATE THE RACE
When we train, we want our paces and intensity to be in the extremes. Because every bit of training is meant to simulate the race to the best of its ability. If you think about a race day, whether it be a 5k or a marathon, you probably take it super easy the day before, the morning of consists of only a warm up, and the day after is almost always spent kicking your feet up. All of this is because you put in a max effort during the race. Of course, if you did not put a max effort in the race you probably won’t feel too tired the next day.
Training works the same way, if you are making the most of your work out days there won’t be anything left in the tank on recovery/easy days. If there is something left, its okay, wait until the next work out day to spend it.
A RUNNING SABBATH
Training this way also produces a mental advantage. If you are so accustom to only being able to push it on work out days, then you will treat them with a sense of reverence. They become hallowed to you. This directly translates to a race. When you race, you are trying to achieve that new PR time or distance. It is a one shot type of ordeal. We all know those people who race every weekend or some twice a week. How often are they beating their previous times, not very often. It is because the importance and the significance of the Race Day has been dulled. When we were training for our marathon in December, Wednesday and Saturday were our hardest days of the week. I am a teacher, and I can remember going through the motions every Wednesday because I was so focused on the workout that night. Every breath I had to convince myself that I could do it. Every thought was solidifying strategy in my head. I would visualize every rep, every recovery, anticipate every negative thought that would creep into my head before I ever set foot on the track. Wednesdays were sacred. We developed our ritual: 1 mile warm up, plyometrics, stretch, 2 minutes of chatter followed by 3 minutes of strategy, we would set up everything we would need during the workout by the finish, and finally we would say 3, 2, 1, GO! If you are capable of putting so much energy towards a single moment, you will succeed every time.
STICK TO THE PLAN
In summary, the recovery/easy run is probably one of my least favorite runs, but it is of paramount importance to run it right. Every day does not have to be spent brutalizing your body. Relax, let your legs recover. Save your energy for workout days, if you’re training the right way, you’ll need it! Remember, "When you are suppose to go slow, go slow; when you are suppose to go fast, go fast."
Thank you again,
Josh Moore (Coach)