Recovery is critical to training. Many runners think that they can cut recovery short, or they use loose criteria to decide when they’ve fully recovered from a run.

Without proper recovery between your hardest runs, you’ll risk putting your entire training schedule in jeopardy. In this post, we’ll look at the importance of recovery and some tips for ensuring you’re getting the right amount of rest before setting out on your next run.

Why Recovery is Important

It may seem obvious – recovery is important to allow your body to heal itself after a hard run. You need time to let your muscles regenerate and get your legs back to working order before your next run.

Recovery is critically important to avoiding injury. If you feel a twinge in your ankle at the start of a run, that could be a sign that you did not allow for sufficient recovery time from a run that tweaked something in the area. If you go out and run 20 miles on an already sore ankle, you will certainly increase your risk of making things worse. An injury that could resolve by resting for a couple of days may become something that will take weeks to heal.

You’ll also get benefits to your overall training if you are forcing yourself to recover appropriately. Running on sore legs may be a way to quickly make them start to feel better, but if you keep at it, you’ll eventually wear out. If you want to follow a long training plan, with goals set as far as 14 or 16 weeks in advance, you need to ensure you have enough energy to do so. You also get the mental benefits of having time to rest and recharge. If you keep pushing yourself every day, running can become a chore. With proper rest in between runs, each run will feel better.

Recovery in a Hard Training Plan

Training schedules are grueling, especially if you’re training for a marathon or a long trail race. Four or five weekly runs, with strength and cross training worked in, make for a near-impossible timetable for ensuring proper rest and recovery between runs. You may be asking – how can I build in recovery when I’m running almost every day? We understand!

The key to successful recovery is to follow the plan. Training plans are built specifically to optimize the run/rest/stress/recover cycle. This means that not only do you have to do all of the runs every week, but you also have to do them in order. If you miss a run, it is better to let it go than to try to make it up by adding miles to your run the next day! Plans are built to have at least a day of recovery after your longest runs, while short tempo or interval runs can be used closer together.

Tips for Active Recovery

If you’re struggling with how to recover, if the feeling of needing to get back onto the road or the treadmill is pressing harder than the need to rest your legs, try focusing on active recovery strategies. These include stretching, yoga, nutrition planning, or even strength training. These active recovery activities can take the boredom and frustration out of recovery and turn it into an active part of your training.