February 13, 2007
A week for every mile raced?
(From Dean Karnazes' Ultramarathon Man, p.209)
Not sure how this radical inflation of running lore slipped past the masses in their ongoing condemnation of Dean Karnazes! I've heard the adage, as have others, that an easy intensity day (1/7 of a week ...) for every mile raced is a decent place to start thinking about how to schedule your recovery. But never a week! I'm not sure if this was a copy-editing mistake or Dean Karnazes is just that far removed from competitive running's oral lore about how to do things.
A lengthy concluding by the way: One could discuss the worth of the original adage for a long time. Some people think it's too conservative. Everyone's experience varies. My view is why do a hard workout when you're still tired from the race? It also depends, I think, how hard you're racing. If you're really just rolling the race as a workout, then you don't have to recover as if it was a race (the race as workout, there's another long discussion). First of all, there's a distinction between easy days and recovery days. If I race less than 10 miles I'll almost always do an easy paced long (2+ hours) run the next day. That's not a recovery day. I very rarely do any anaerobic workouts within x days of an x mile race. Strides and moderate aerobic workouts (tempo and slower) are OK. Your mileage may vary. But don't take Dean's advice, or you'll hardly ever race.
Posted by eroberts at February 13, 2007 8:26 AM