Hi, I have a race coming up on Monday and for the past couple of days my legs have been DEAD. And today our xc team ran a long run, mostly uphill and my legs feel even worse and very sore. My question is, is it best to take a day off, run less mileage at an easier pace, bike, or to just suck it up and run normal mileage. My main worry is that I am not giving my body any time to recover before the race and I also have another very important race the following Saturday as well. Thanks
Take it super easy, you want to have fresh legs on race days.
I always wonder this. Never know whether it is best to run short and easy or just take the day before off if I am feeling tired. Be interesting to see what others think/do.
If you need to recover but also to run a race soon then either run a short (20-30min) super slow and do light (3k-5k pace) strides after. Or spin the legs easy on the bike for 45 minutes. Active recovery is better imo.
I also wonder what is best to do when legs are feeling heavy for more than a few days, especially if there is an important race coming up in 5-7 days. Do you take a couple days completely off or run super slow, or is it best to continue the workouts planned but bring down the amount of the intervals and the intesity, making sure the recoveries and easy running are slow.
Personally, I have better experience with 2 days completely off. That's partly because I don't have the discipline to take easy runs really easy.
If I had to do an active recovery, I'd choose a warm-up mile, some drills, 3x80m strides, 4x200m @ 3k pace with 2min rest, cool-down mile.
RIP: D3 All-American Frank Csorba - who ran 13:56 in March - dead
RENATO can you talk about the preparation of Emile Cairess 2:06
Running for Bowerman Track Club used to be cool now its embarrassing
Hats off to my dad. He just ran a 1:42 Half Marathon and turns 75 in 2 months!
Great interview with Steve Cram - says Jakob has no chance of WRs this year