Ryan Hall takes full day off

Taking a full day off every week for a world class marathon runner seems a little extreme. The rest is helping him now but he is living off of the huge base he built up under Mahon. If he started this right out of Stanford we may not be talking about him right now.

Sub240 wrote:

IDK, I just have the feeling that he had success initially with reducing mileage and adding rest, emphasizing quality over quantity. However, I'm concerned that this may lead to immediate results (as it has) but not going to be beneficial in the long term.

Thoughts?

I've had the same thought. Really I would have liked to see him run some track races too - I think helped him out initially too.

It's not like he's the only one in the world to take Sundays off, though. Sammy Wanjiru did, and Nick Willis does, so it could be a legitimate thing - Chicago will help tell whether it was a good long-term thing or not I guess.

I remember Sammy Wanjiru saying "sundays are off":

http://japanrunningnews.blogspot.com/2008/12/samuel-wanjiru-shares-secret-of.html

Virtually all Kenyan marathoners take a full day off every week. When will OCD American runners believe this??

Brb gotta go change my training schedule

If you run at the same time everyday, you take 24 hours off every day

ccrunner609 wrote:

If you run at the same time everyday, you take 24 hours off every day

Only if your run is of length zero...hey, I've got a 39-year training streak now!

Day to Day wrote:

Virtually all Kenyan marathoners take a full day off every week. When will OCD American runners believe this??

Their addiction problem won't let them.

Hall isn't the only one. Running yourself into the ground and getting injured isn't smart training and taking a day off may help prevent that. Plus, it helps the mental aspect of running by helping to keep your training from getting stale. Whether it's 1 in 7 days or 1 in 10 or whatever, it's a sensible thing to do.

In the 2000 Olympics the United States followed a "less is more" decade of training with exactly one runner qualified to run in the marathon. His name was Rod DeHaven and here are his stats for the year:

2000: Won U.S. Men's Olympic Marathon Trials in 2:15:30, placed 69th in Olympic marathon (2:30:46)...best of 2:15:30.

If you guys want to go back to that then rest up.

People who incorporate(d) frequent rest days into their training

Ryan Hall

Bernard Lagat

Sammy Wanjiru

Seb Coe

Paula Radcliffe

Hicham El Guerrouj

I think the LetsRun crowd need to learn to stop being so anal about resting. Not allowing yourself rest shows insecurity. Rest is just as important as work, what about that is so difficult to understand?

clearing the bs up wrote:

Not allowing yourself rest shows insecurity.

LOL

Hall has to take the Sabbath off or his coach/mentor will sack him.

maybe you should read Train Hard Win Easy: The Kenyan Way, as noted earlier in the thread it's a common practice to take a day off each week to 10 days.. While some think the book is some sort of conspiracy to make Americans train less, Kenyans have figured out nobody gives out medals for how many days in a row you train or how many miles you log.

They work plenty hard on the "on" days no doubt, but they certainly place a lot of emphasis on downtime between "hard" workouts. 12-15 workouts every 6-9 days is no picnic, so following it with an off day to regroup makes sense.

clearing the bs up wrote:

People who incorporate(d) frequent rest days into their training

Ryan Hall

Bernard Lagat

Sammy Wanjiru

Seb Coe

Paula Radcliffe

Hicham El Guerrouj

I think the LetsRun crowd need to learn to stop being so anal about resting. Not allowing yourself rest shows insecurity. Rest is just as important as work, what about that is so difficult to understand?

There are drugs for OCD.

Sub240 wrote:

Congrats on your new 800m PR!

If you follow the Sabbath for God, shouldn't it be like the whole weekend?

On the other hand, Ron Hill decided never to miss a day because he decided that consistency was one of the things he needed if he was to going to be as good as he could and that didn't work out too badly. Shorter once had a stretch where he said he missed six days in a span of two years, I think. It was something along those lines. That worked out ok as well.

"A day without training is like a day without eating," said Gebrselassie, who trains twice a day, six days a week with a single morning session on the seventh day...."

http://af.reuters.com/article/sportsNews/idAFJOE62J03220100320?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

"We had to stay in the Sheraton next to Heathrow but when we arrived it was about 11 o'clock in the evening and the middle of the winter. It was impossible to train outside.

"I started to think about how I could train and then I noticed that my hotel corridor was very long. I put on my shoes and started to run up and down it, and then some of my friends joined me....

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/athletics/3851424/No-sign-of-finish-line-for-Haile-Gebrselassie.html