Friday Q&A: Balancing Training and Recovery
What motivates you to do so many? How do you balance training and recovery?-Ann
Sorry for the late post today, but Word Press ate my earlier one and then I actually had to do my job. Ann had asked several question of which I’ll take a couple now and answer the rest in a longer guest post back on MizFitOnline.com.
What motivates me? Well, I’m motivated by seeking out new challenges and finding cool places to run. A lot of why I do so many can be related back to the people I hang out (Shameless Plug Here: I’ve got an article in the current issue of Marathon and Beyond where I go into way more detail, so go out and pick up a copy at Barnes and Noble. Haha).
But in all seriousness, I enjoy running and I enjoying running in new places. When I travel for work I always run the city as a way to learn where things are and just get a different feel than you can get from a conference room. I’m trying to run a marathon in every state and so that takes me to a lot of places I wouldn’t normally go. You get to see different parts of America and the World than you would without running. I honestly don’t think I would have ever gone to North Dakota if I wasn’t running a marathon (no offense to ND, but seriously not a lot going on up there).
I’ve met a lot of really interesting people who also seem to be damaged in some way that compels them to run a lot of marathons. So perhaps misery loves company.
You asked how I balance training and recovery, and the short answer is that I don’t. Or at least I just don’t really train all that much. A typical week for me without a marathon is in the 20-30 mile range. But, and this is the key for me, I run at least one marathon every month. This means I don’t have to do long runs (by myself anyway). My long runs always have aid stations, medals and t-shirts.
For recovery I am a big believer in the TP Massage kit from TPMassageBall.com. This set really helps keep me together, I’ll write more on this in the future. I also try to get a deep tissue massage every month. This helps get out the kinks and keep me moving. I pass on the candles and soft music put you to sleep massage and go for a deep tissue from a sports performance shop. It doesn’t feel good during, but feels so good afterwards.
After a marathon I try to soak my legs in cold water, ideally ice water or a cold running stream. A lot of time my travel schedule has me rushing to the airport and skipping this step, but if possible this is a great thing to do.
Then the following day I will either do a nice light 3-4 mile run or take a day off. I will probably run 4-5 days the week after a marathon to make sure everything loosens up and this speeds my recovery. Ideally I’d have my massage on a Wednesday or Thursday after a marathon and I’d also love to get one 4-5 days before my next marathon, but that gets pricey and doesn’t always happen. But when it does I usually get a good time.
I’ve also found that having 3-4 weeks between marathons is when I run my best. I’ve run marathons on Saturday/Sunday but the second day is always much slower. I’ve had good races on 1 or 2 weeks rest, but the last 10k usually has my legs feeling pretty heavy if I don’t get enough rest time between.
So how do you all recover? Perhaps I’ll learn a new trick or two.
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I usually take ice baths after my races and just swim and bike the week after a marathon. With just one week between marathons, I don’t feel the need to run at all in between. I just ran my fastest marathon of the year last weekend. It was 5 weeks since my last marathon but I only ran about 50 miles total in those 5 weeks. Half of those miles were part of two half iron triathlons, though. This week I was in your neck of the woods swimming in Barton Springs — what a treat!
rest and a couple easy runs after any long race. wait until the mental drive to run hard returns, then run a couple weeks of more mileage leading up to the race. stretch when necessary. don’t spend any money on any extra crap.