Does taking a day off make you better?

You are forgetting about the hard 12 miler they finish up by 11:45 PM saturday evening and the 16 mile marathon pace run they do monday morning. Not running sunday is really no picnic.

Im not saying they run any less. Taking a day off would obviously force you to put those miles in on other days. At the same time, it gives your body over 24 full hours of rest. At the same time, maybe it is better to have 1-2 more days of harder running a week with a day off than just 7 straight.

I'd say every once in a while but not weekly

depends on your personal recovery time i guess. Taking a full day off makes sure you recover fully at least once a week.

I guess if you're doing doubles maybe even an occasional triple and you're getting in the miles a day off is ok.

There was a Kenyan back in the early 90's (sorry can't remember his name) who ran 5 days a week. But it was 3 a days and mega mileage.

There are a hundred ways to skin a mongoose (is that the saying?)

There is likely no "best" training, just a mixture of inputs that get you to your output.

If your training has high mileage, high intensity, and adequate recovery it will get you as far as you can go. Whether those elements are achieved over 6 days or 7 is immaterial. It is up to you to decide how you can best balance all the demands of training with the rest of your life.

So you ask if taking a day off makes you a better runner. I can answer that definitively. No it does not. There are times when you need to take a day off to recover. There are times when you can take a day off and rearrange your week to get in the same amount of work. There are times when taking a day off it just you missing a run. If you are already doing 120 mpw w/ quality in 7 days, switching to 120 mpw w/ quality in 6 probably won't do anything for you. Likewise, if you are doing 120 mpw w/ quality in 6 days, doing the same thing in 7 won't do anything for you. At the end of the year, you've done the same volume of work and that is what counts, not weeks, years.

At least that is the way I see it.

When my mileage gets above 85mpw or so, I find that I feel a lot better with a day off per week. I usually run 6 days per week (a total of 9 runs). I time my day off so I go about 35-40 hours between runs. I do have the luxury of timing it that way, and it helps me feel better, both mentally and physically.

I'm an older guy and running less than 7 days a week doesn't work for me. I certainly need as much (more) recovery as the next guy but there is nothing that keeps me as flexible and ready to run harder as running easier. After 36 to 48 hours off, I have to make my day back an easy day to get everything moving again, kind of like tightening up if you stand around too long before a race.

I agree with the poster above me, I take a lot of days off just out of laziness and not wanting to run, but it definitely sucks trying to do a work out after a day off from running. When I'm trying to get in plenty of intensity I have to get some easy running in every day, or else I have to have an easy run before my hard run.

I don't take a full day off, but every couple of weeks I make sure that I get 36 hours without running. By that I meant that I finish up a run on, say, Tuesday morning, don't run Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning, and run again Wednesday evening. Then it's back to the doubles Thursday morning.

No full day off, but still plenty of rest with this approach. I find that this works pretty well for me.

You guys are so OCD it's sick.

One day wont hurt you.

Remember this: The man with the prettiest training log isnt the guy that wins the race. Put in the work, rest when needed, and hammer it when needed,

To think that you will perform worse because you didnt do that one 4M shake out run is rediculous.

it has worked for Radcliffe, Wanjiru and Lagat for example.

Yes. A human body is designed to benefit from a day off per week.

EZ10Miler wrote:

You guys are so OCD it's sick.

One day wont hurt you.

Remember this: The man with the prettiest training log isnt the guy that wins the race. Put in the work, rest when needed, and hammer it when needed,

To think that you will perform worse because you didnt do that one 4M shake out run is rediculous.

Exactly. BUTTTTT, you can recover and still run. I know that I feel like shit when I take a day off no matter how much my body was telling me I needed it. I do much better to just get out the door and do 45 minutes at a super slow pace on grass than do no running. That's just me. The point is that no two people are the same, there is no magic training formula that will work for everyone. Don't belittle me because I don't take days off and I won't belittle you for not running every day, as long as you're feeling good and training hard who cares?

Crayola wrote:

BYU might not be the best team in the nation, but they are consistently great and have won 9 out of the last 11 MWC titles in cross.

The womens team has won NCAA cross a few times.

If you need to take a day off, you are running your easy days too hard.

I've been running 6 days a week since I started running and if I do any more I feel terrible.

A day off helps you recover, makes you feel fresh in your workouts, and has no negative impact on performance. If you feel you need to take a day off then you should listen to your body and take it off.

A lot of elites also take low mileage days (30 minute jog or similar) to recover. Some take a day completely off. It doesn't make a difference.

Why is it too hard? You're running your easy days harder because you get the extra day off per week.

For that matter you could be running your hard runs too hard.

This is way too one sided. Obviously, one day off per week has been tried and works for many. What several of us have been trying to tell you is that one day off can easily make a difference.

For me, whenever I take a day off, my IT band tightens up and my knee stops tracking properly. I then have to run at least one day easy to fix the problem. I have tried every stretch and warmup. If I ignore the pain on the day back, I am out for 3 or 4 more days trying to get the swelling down. By that time I have had about a week of poor training and have obviously lost fitness.

While you might think the conditions for which one day off is a problem are rare, I bet most every one here has experienced the idea that it is easier to keep a routine going than to restart it after even a one day break.