Rest Days

How important are rest days?  Probably just as important if not more important than the training days.  How we get stronger is breaking down muscle and having it rebuilt.  If we don't give the muscle time to recover and rebuild we risk injury.  I found my old skins compression pants which I am going to wear after training to hopefully aid the recovery process.

If you have read other posts from me you might have gathered that I have never followed a training plan.  In the past my rest days where more than my training days so the one or maybe two rest days a week now are a nice break.  I have already done more mileage this year than all of my other Marathons put together.  The structure is good but I can sometimes see myself looking ahead thinking I have x,y or z to do this evening but I also have a run.  I start work too early to get morning runs in so it is a balance of time.  As I write this I am thinking of tomorrows run not tonights rest day.  That has to be a good thing..  Progress

Sundays long run

 

When I say long run it is long for me 13.44miles.  I am not into the bigger mileage yet.  Started out really slow straight into a long 2 mile climb.  Down the other side gets steep so it was a bit of work trying to reign myself in and not up the pace.

The purpose of this run was slow and steady to remain comfortable throughout.  A route with plenty of ups and downs.  When you are comfortable the tendancy is to speed up on the descents.  Thankfully I didn't fall into that trap by constantly reminding myself.  Talking to myself as I run is a good way of keeping my mind off any potential aches or pains.  When I say talking to myself I mean into myself.  I can go over things like whats coming next if I know the route. With a couple of miles to home I lifted the pace a bit.  I still felt comfortable and didnt push to a full race pace but felt I still had loads left.  No tired feeling and the heart rate didn't rise much in the injection of pace.  Strava says PB but I know I have run the same distance faster in training and in races.  Back when I started running I was using a £10 wrist watch mainly to tell the time.  I never looked at pace speed or distance back then.  Jesus I sound like an old man.  That wasn't that long ago I just choose not to buy a gps back then. 

I finished with an 8.5 mile road bike ride to cool down.  Don't think I will do it again because the bike isn't a great fit and the knees didnt feel good at all. Sunday Morning with a half marathon and a small bike ride done and it is only 10am.