I'm 37 years old and feel that I just need two easy days between workouts.

Former Olympian Kenny Moore needed two days between hard days when he was running for Bill Bowerman at University of Oregon. Take the easy days and don't give it another thought.

Igy

I got pretty overtrained doing Daniles 5/10k plan, however I also threw in too many supplemental workouts like hard strength training and intense hikes. But yeah I need a couple days in between hard workouts...

I am having luck right now with two easy days between workouts.

Run by feel. Don't force it. I have taken three easy days between if the potential day before doesn't feel wonderful. I moved away from the hard and fast weekly schedule. That was fine in college, but recently, with all of adult life's other requirements, I have to rest differently.

I'm going to be 35 in a week and am basically taking 2 easy days after each hard workout (9 day cycles I guess, sort of like Hansons' actual runners and Meb). sometimes after a tempo run or a shorter or less intense workout then I'm ok to go hard again after just one easy day. I don't mind a long run the day after a hard workout & During marathon training I will sometimes mix it up to run specific workouts on tired legs and also will definitely take more than 2 days easy after really hard/long efforts. A lot of it is by feel as John mentioned too.

At any rate, I don't think I could hang with the recovery time in daniels' plan.

I'm getting old wrote:

I have been Daniel's training for years now, but I am finding out that I am no longer able to recover with one easy day. I need two between workouts. Period. I have sustained a few injuries and they all seem to stem from not having 2 easy days between workouts. When I have 2 easy days between, I always feel good.

Has anyone else experienced this? And are there any training outlines that use 9-day segments instead of 7 days?

Thanks!

I felt this start in my late 20s. It was gradual, one day was enough depending on the workout at first, with some needing two days. Over a few years it changed to needing 2 days to recover from any hard workout.

I was never able to take just one day off even in my prime. Always needed two. Now I need three.

I've actually found that two easy days between hard efforts works better even for the HS kids I coach. Unfortunately our league requires dual meets on most Wednesdays, so the schedule often ends up with just one day.

Pushing 40 here. While it takes me a good 3-5 days to recover, I like to do back to back days of hard efforts. Usually an interval or fartlek day followed by a tempo or threshold run.

My high school coach often cited a study that concluded that the effects of a hard workout are felt two days after said workout. The implication was that you could run back to back hard days. Couldn't tell you the name of the study, but my coach was very successful and well respected.

Under that assumption I've always done two hard days in a row, typically followed by an easy day, easy/moderate day, and long run. For example:

Mon: Easy run with strides and core

Tue: Easy run or off

Wed: intervals and core

Th: tempo or threshold

Fri: easy run with strides

Sat: easy or moderate run with pickups if feeling it, core

Sun: long run

Two things that may allow this to work. First, I don't race my interval days. Jogging the rest period helps keep me in check and I usually do one or two intervals less than I could if I pushed myself harder.

Second, my tempo/threshold runs are 5-6 miles and run closer to half marathon pace. A hard effort, but not "going to the well" line some might to run a true 20 min tempo.

I consider this all a modified, old guy way of training but it keeps me healthy and winning my age group.

I'm in the same boat. After a string of injuries, I am contemplating cutting back on mileage and perhaps taking a day off. I suppose staying healthy is a talent in itself!

35 here and building my mileage back up after a spring injury. I have come to find that 3 hard sessions every 2 weeks is ideal for me. Every time I start pushing beyond that little things that are not so ideal come up.

If I can string together months of that kind of training, I always feel super fit.

I've never been able to do hard workouts with one day between them. On the rare occasions I attempt it, I think of the two workouts as a pair to be survived together. Accordingly, I try to run very much within myself on the first day.Anecdotally, a lot of elites seem to be doing Tuesday/Friday for their hardest days.Also, for what it's worth, muscle fiber distribution has more to do with it than age. High FT runners need more time to recover. They also have the wheels to go farther past their own redline, so it's more important for them to make sure that they don't accidentally race their workouts. With high ST runners, the only thing that seems to trash them is long MP runs.

Old fat slow hung wrote:

Pushing 40 here. While it takes me a good 3-5 days to recover, I like to do back to back days of hard efforts. Usually an interval or fartlek day followed by a tempo or threshold run.

My high school coach often cited a study that concluded that the effects of a hard workout are felt two days after said workout. The implication was that you could run back to back hard days. Couldn't tell you the name of the study, but my coach was very successful and well respected.

I'm a big fan of this approach. I'm usually in decent shape the day after a hard workout, but sometimes I'm so wrecked the rest of the week that another workout is out of the question. One way to reliably get in two hard days is to back them up.

Why don't you run every other day? Do other stuff on off days.

I've been running for 27 years. In the first several years, i did the tues/thurs/sat or sun hard run combo and was constantly overtrained. When i dumped the thurs workout and just did tues and sat or sun, i started PRing. I was in my 20s then.

It's even more crucial to have that extra day now even when one of the hard workouts is a hard ride.

I definitely feel my Thursday runs suffer because I'm not totally recovered from Tuesday workouts but I can't make my schedule work any other way. This give me two days rest before Sunday which is normally either a long run or race for me and then I take Monday off from running.

Rest is one of the least used training sessions. And perhaps the most effective.

As you get older you realize that. But its tough for athletes to buy in.

I have always done 10-day training cycles with my athletes That means 2 easy workouts between each hard workout. I follow it myself as well.

At 50, I do a workout on Thursday and a long run on Sunday. On Tuesday I can get a mini-workout but that's it, eg yesterday was 10 x 1 minute around 5K pace. An easy run with the last 2 miles faster would be another option.

I run less now than I used to, and find that I can push myself harder (relative to my fitness) than I used to. This makes me more sore after my workouts, too. Wonder if this is the same thing that's happening to everyone?

At my age I find I can recover and workout much better with two non-workout days than one.

But whether I take that depends on what I'm training for. I usually do mid-d indoors and outdoors, Jan-June, and for the most part want to be fresh for those workouts, so I would usually work out Mon-Thurs or Tues-Fri (taking a longer but easy run on Sat or Sun respectively.

In the summer and fall I do longer road racing and think starting workouts tired is part of the game in half/marathon training, so I'll work out pretty hard three times per week (in a 7 day cycle, getting 1-1-2 days of rest).

Never had much injury trouble so I guess I'm lucky there...for now.