Recovery runs

[Sweder]

Great post Dan.
I like recovery runs (or in the case of Connemara, El Cuckoo's 2 hour saunter up Croag Patrick). I call it 'spinning the legs' or 'shaking off the rust', neither phrase standing up to any form of scientific scrutiny. In Almeria we followed a tough, hard-surface half marathon with a 10k slog up and down dirt trails. Sure enough it hurt like hell at first but I admit I felt pretty darned good by the end of it.

Somehow it helps me to get out there soon after a brutal session. I've never thought of these as a way to deal with lactic acid so the findings above don't disappoint. I've always seen them as a way to stretch tightening legs, infuse bruised and torn muscles with restorative, oxygenated blood and, perhaps best of all, a way to warm up before having that proper stretch that I avoided immediately after the previous run.

'Running on tired legs' is the great mantra espoused by Sam 'Yoda' Lambourne. Sam runs track sessions at Withdean, timing 200, 300 and 400 metre reps for an hour before tagging on a four-lap finish 'as hard as you can manage'. The idea is to batter the legs with the short sprinted reps before 'teaching' them to run on when knackered. This is as much about the mental aspect as muscle development. On long runs he will cycle up behind people he deems to be running well in the last stages and bark orders to put the hammer down, again to run hard on tiring legs, all the way to the finish.

On the 3 runs per week (chance would be a fine thing just now) I tend to mix it up on each run, varying the amount of hard running I do through Fartlek/ running the hills as hard as possible and recovering on the downslopes. The best advice I've heard is 'listen to your body' - if you feel like pushing hard, do it. If not, don't. I reckon that's good advice for the keen amateur.