Running on "tired legs" - what's the logic?

DOMS usually peaks at 36-48 hours post workout, therefore a block of two sessions can sometimes be workable.

Depends on what you mean by "tired"? My legs are always "tired" throughout training until I taper a bit before a race. "Soreness" is another issue. I don't like running on sore legs - tells me that I am overtraining and should back off a bit.

What do you do at the end of a tough race? You try to hold your form and relax.

What do you do when train after you're already tired? Same damn thing.

Because lots of times you'll get tired towards the end of a race or maybe you'll have to race starting out tired if you are doing multiple races in short order.

Essentially it gives you a pair so you don't start whining when you're not absolutely bursting with energy.

Recruitment of muscle fibers that aren't required when your legs are fresh. Training energy systems to deal with fatigue. That kind of thing.

"Cassidy always felt that those who partook of the difficult pleasures of the highly competitive runner only when comfortable, when in a state of high energy, when rested, elated, or untroubled by previous exertions, such dilettantes missed the point... a true runner Ran even when he didn’t feel like it, and raced when he was supposed to, without excuses and with nothing held back."

There there, Cas...

I hate it. Running on "tired legs" got me injured. Every single time. I never do it anymore. I think it is overrated too. Just get good consistent mileage and tempos.

maximum training wrote:

I hate it. Running on "tired legs" got me injured. Every single time. I never do it anymore. I think it is overrated too. Just get good consistent mileage and tempos.

That's what I thought of.

Some people think that there is some fitness gain by doing this.

It may be confusing. If you always run slow and then you race, next day the muscles will be stiff and give the sensation of good tone, but the muscles are stiff and numb, in the same time.

On the other hand, a recovery run would relax the muscles and get them back to their senses.

George Ilie wrote:

maximum training wrote:

I hate it. Running on "tired legs" got me injured. Every single time. I never do it anymore. I think it is overrated too. Just get good consistent mileage and tempos.

That's what I thought of.

Some people think that there is some fitness gain by doing this.

It may be confusing. If you always run slow and then you race, next day the muscles will be stiff and give the sensation of good tone, but the muscles are stiff and numb, in the same time.

On the other hand, a recovery run would relax the muscles and get them back to their senses.

Fair amount of bro science being quoted here.

George Ilie wrote:

I know that some coaches/authors have this idea of doing a long run after an intensive workout, or the other way around.

Or simpler, two consecutive days of tough training.

What is their reasoning?

What they think that happens if a runner does that?

My understanding is that what you are getting at falls into a few categories of functions. You may be asking and referring to only one of these categories.

First is the true recovery run as espoused by many. I feel it was especially well described by Renato Canova who explained his philosophy in training posts long ago on this forum on the matter. He called the goal of this incorporation as "super-compensation," which is language that not only brings his science in line with productive science elsewhere* but suggests his familiarity with that science elsewhere and that he knows what he is doing.

*https://www.amazon.com/Antifragile-Things-That-Disorder-Incerto/dp/0812979680

His Kenyan athletes would (and do) go for a very slow recovery jog the morning after some hard workout (or perhaps even race). He said that measurements he conducted indicated/proved that athletes who did this recovered much better than athletes who just rested and "stayed on the couch" so to speak.

There are variations of the "slow run with recovery/beneficial purposes" also advocated by the Brojos. One year ago I believe they were talking about it actively again on this website: easy relaxed running where you are able to maintain conversation and your heart-rate stays below a certain threshold. This sort of running they also advocate even without the impetus of tired legs from days just prior. They say making it a recurrent staple increases the ratio in the entire training volume of lighter running versus higher intensities.

The other category of "running on tired legs" would be the matter of doing bonafide moderate hard or hard training on tired legs. A poster in this thread already alluded to an idea that has been scrutinized, generated controversy, etc.^ on these forum boards, most famously highlighted by many conspicuous instances of Al Sal and Galen Rupp's post race workouts. Sometimes seemingly insanely intense workouts followed great performances and sometimes insanely demanding workouts followed mediocre performances or DNF's (like the instance where Rupp dropped out of the indoor mile race due to a cuboid bone problem which was supposedly fixed by his physiotherapist shortly after). Both these scenarios garnered astonishment and criticism, with critics claiming that the former indicated unworldly fitness while the latter indicated foul play or at least inconsistency that invited suspicion.

A poster in this thread said there is a window before DOMS peaks which pertains to some of the detail in the discussion of Al Sal and Galen Rupp's post race workouts (something about favorable physiological opportunity in a period of time right after a race).

^Especially as we now know particularly after the last year of developments and increases in our knowledge of past and current flagrant doping and now TUE abuse in endurance sports:

many believed then and believe even more so now that these hard workouts on tired legs were and are ill-advisable for non-elites.

I think other kinds of workouts would fall into the same category even though the nature of the session might be different as well as the specific goal being different. Some runners justify going for broke and/or going out hard in the beginning of a race (when we're not talking about third world East Africans who are doing it for financial/existential cost benefit analysis) in order to get the "experience" and sometimes in order to eventually get a training benefit of doing a block of high intensity until the ability to maintain it is depleted but then somehow still hanging on at a decent pace or at least swift jog for a significant portion longer. I tend to think of this sort of endeavour as different from interval workouts because it has basically a binary simplicity whereas most interval workouts are more complex with more numerous elements.

Obviously with this, you could injure yourself short term or long term or damage your nervous system and burnout.

Now, as for your last point? Two hard workouts scheduled adjacent to each other... that just looks like a neutral blocking/scheduling statement. You'd have to have more context and also the opinions of the coach who made the schedule to figure more out there. I suppose it might have overlap with the previous category, but more likely, I could imagine that existing in a collegiate distance training year. During xc, I imagine the coach would have

have this block of scheduling with the mindset of trying to make his already talented and proven athletes "strong" in season (and that they should be able to handle it given the talent he recruited for). During track, I imagine the coach would do this in the sharpening phase, trying to get his athletes directly and specifically prepared for an upcoming major meet. Perhaps he/she knows or does not know he/she is being reckless and perhaps just expects his scholarship athletes to endure it. In both these scenarios, I could imagine the xc or track coach blocking these adjacent hard workouts without any intention similar to Alberto Salazar or the binary conception I proposed (go out very hard and then try to hang on at a lesser pace after the high intensity ability disappears).

Thanks

Whoops! I forgot a detail on the last part. I was going to say, that the college coach would be of the mindset that sometimes you just got to be hard on the athletes and they have to have some good faith and discipline to endure. Less a mindset of recklessly throwing eggs at the wall and squandering scholarship athletes and more the idea that Steve Magness expressed in one of his writings:

http://scienceofrunning.com/2015/09/the-training-grind-why-its-sometimes.html

EXCERPT:

My reply is almost always the same, “Just keep running. I don’t care if you have to run incredibly slow, just get the mileage in…” You can hear the frustration over the phone as they come to the sinking realization that you are offering no magical cure. But then you get to the fun part, “If you keep grinding through, you’re going to feel like absolute crap, but then wake up the one morning with your legs magically feeling great. It just happens.”

Also, to a lesser extent, see:

http://scienceofrunning.com/2015/12/the-dangers-of-doing-too-little-why.html

Sorry, here are some better excerpts (I really liked the article, it described a certain something which I wish I had more concise terms for... a medium-term training adaptation curve of sorts I suppose.)

http://scienceofrunning.com/2015/09/the-training-grind-why-its-sometimes.html

EXCERPTS:

When athletes make the unenviable jump to ” the grind” is when the questions start popping up. The grind is the mileage jump. That point when you are increasing your training to never before experienced levels in the dead of Houston summer. Along with the grind comes the dreaded feeling of sluggish runs accompanied by legs filled with lead. All of the sudden 7 minute miles feel awful. In other words, you feel like death.

[...]

The calls and texts come in, “Coach, I feel horrible. What do I do? Should I lower my mileage, take an ice bath, cut my legs off?” They’re pleading for answers on how to fix the problem.

[...]

Inevitably, a few weeks go by and they understand. It just happens. It’s almost as if your body protests as much as it can, then realizes you aren’t going to let up, so it says “shit, he’s just going to keep doing this to us, we might as well adapt,” and you go back to how running is supposed to feel.

[...]

I stumbled upon this phenomenon during a youth spent running 100+mpw in the horrid humidity of Houston, Texas. It happened every summer. I’d go from my mini-break of zero miles to over 100mpw in 2-3 weeks, feel like I was going to die for another 10-20 days, then magically feel good again. What I learned was that if I gave in, took some time off, lowered the mileage, skipped a double, it just prolonged the suffering. It took me longer to get to the point where I felt good.

Here is an interesting post by HHH about how the muscle recruitment changes when you're fatigued and I think that would apply to what you're talking about as well. He was saying that when you run so many miles in a week the ST muscles are fatigued and the FT muscles start to be used similar to the end of a long run. http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=465522&page=1

Slow recovery run within 24 to 48 hours is fine.

And I mean slow......I am talking an easy jog for 15 to 45 minutes helps with the blood circulation to aid recovery.

Listen to your body and don't stress it. If you have stressed your legs again you will get injured.

Thanks for the detailed answer.

Recovery runs are no doubt well known for their benefits, so I wasn't talking about them.

"Running on tired legs" is a confusing term. Who runs everyday, has tired legs all the time probably. So I wasn't referring at off days for recovery.

For the 36-48 hours window until DOMS is set, that must happen at races longer than the runner has trained for. Is hard to believe that a runner who runs, let's say, 80 mpw will have DOMS after a 3-5k race on a track.

Except if there are some major changes, like new shoes or completely different running surface.

What intrigues me is the concept of doing today a hard intervals workout, followed by tomorrow's long run. Some people say that this makes the runner adapt to the marathon-like situation.

A runner would run 7-15 miles per day during the marathon training, with a long run of 18 miles, BUT with an intervals session just the day before.

Basically he would feel like starting the long run from 18 miles.

Speaking of "recruiting muscle fibers" idea, it may happen along the race training, but in this combination (intervals, followed by long run), does not fit well. The long run itself is designed for aerobics improvement and "muscle fibers recruitment".

It sounds like an overdose.

Hold It and Relax wrote:

What do you do at the end of a tough race? You try to hold your form and relax.

What do you do when train after you're already tired? Same damn thing.

exactly. Training fresh is no replicator of a race. You need to be able to hold it together in race conditions, and the best way is to learn to handle fatigue

Why don't just race more then?

It's the best way to train for multi day relay races like Hood to Coast and Ragnar.