Running Slow to Get Faster: The Importance of Recovery

Everybody knows that in order to gain fitness (whether it's in running or other sports), you have to work hard and be consistent. However, as I've said briefly in another article, recovery days are just as important as hard workouts. The key to improvement is stress and adaptation, and if you work hard every day, you will simply tear down yourself down until you are injured or too tired to run. So, with that in mind, I'm going to discuss in a little more detail what recovery days are, and how to use them.

Why do I need a recovery day?

It's actually a myth that muscle soreness is caused by lactic acid-lactic acid is only generated through anaerobic work and is cleared from the body within an hour of the workout. The precise reason for muscle soreness is unknown, but it has been theorized that it is actually the result of microtears in the muscle fibers. Recovery days are necessary in order to let the body repair these microtears and come back stronger than you were before the workout. Looking at things this way, it's easy to see that recovery days are actually just as important as hard workouts in order to improve your speed and fitness.

When should I take a recovery day?

Even if you are not excessively sore, you should always take a recovery day after a "hard" workout. "Hard" workouts are any runs that are more difficult in terms of intensity or volume than a regular run-in other words, after intervals, fartlek, tempo, or long run. These workouts stress your body in different ways, so in order to reap the reward from you work, you need to recover from them.

What exactly is a recovery day?

A recovery day can mean different things depending on your fitness and your goals. For many people, a recovery day can be a day without any running at all. This is often necessary if you find that you overreached on the previous day's workout and that you are especially sore and tired. You should take a complete day off if you cannot run without compromising your form or you have lingering soreness after a prolonged warm-up. Both these things are warning signs for injury. Beginning runners are also served well by taking the day off entirely on recovery days.

Cross training is a great option for a recovery day if you wish to stay active and burn calories. You should choose something that is low impact, such as riding a stationary bike or doing yoga, for example. If you don't do these activities regularly, obviously you won't want to push yourself too hard, otherwise you will need a recovery day from your recovery day!

If you want to run on your recovery day, you should do so very easy. To gauge the "easiness," of a run, you can employ the talk test. During a recovery run, you should be able to talk in complete sentences. You should not have to pause mid-sentence, as this is an indicator that you are working too hard and breathing too heavy. After an ideal recovery run, you should feel refreshed and better than when you started. You should feel as if you could have run faster and farther, but chose not to.

It's a good idea to choose a different running route on an easy day. Take a more scenic path, do some exploring of your neighborhood, and so on. This will prevent you from being tempted to run as fast as you normally do on any other given run, which is a natural instinct for many runners. Measure your workout by time, not distance.

What else should I do on a recovery day?

Because you're not working as hard as usual, you may be tempted to cut calories on a recovery day. Avoid this temptation. Your body needs carbohydrates to refuel and protein to rebuild muscle. Eat as you normally would. If you monitor your weight daily, you may notice a slight increase, but be assured this is very likely just water weight if you are eating reasonably. Also, try to get at least as much sleep as you normally do, if not more.
To many motivated runners, the concept of recovery days can seem foreign and counter-intuitive. When I started running I resisted the hard/easy system, opting to run every day relatively hard. I improved for a short time, but found my results diminishing and eventually stagnating over time, until I learned the proper way to train. Some Olympic caliber athletes can train hard almost every day, but for us mortals, taking recovery days is a key part of the training schedule and is the only way you'll see long term improvement.