Smart Recovery
I wrote a blog post in 2015 entitled the Art of Recovery. The gist of that post was to run slow, really slow, a couple days a week and particularly after a race. Well enough, but there’s a whole lot more to consider. Also, that post was not specifically geared to masters runners whereas this one is. I’m drawing some points made by Peter Reaburn in his comprehensive book, The Masters Athlete. The main purpose of recovery is to avoid injury. As masters runners, we are particularly vulnerable to injury after races and an extremely intense workout or series of workouts. For a 5K, the recovery period is three to five days, for a half marathon a couple weeks, and several weeks for a marathon. Research suggests one day of recovery for every mile raced. However, this assumes the following: We went into the race sufficiently trained and rested. If we trained long and hard up until the day or two before the race, then we likely had muscle and tissue damage lingering, which the race added to. This means more than the standard time to fully recover. Our fundamental biomechanics are sound. If we excessively pronate, for example, and … Continue reading