Run Streaking is becoming ever more popular.
Runner’s World has a Memorial to Independence Day 1 mile a day streak. And news just came out that the longest known US streak of 45 years is coming to a voluntary end in July.
There are various reasons for wanting to run every day.
Run Streaking is becoming ever more popular.
Runner’s World has a Memorial to Independence Day 1 mile a day streak. And news just came out that the longest known US streak of 45 years is coming to a voluntary end in July.
There are various reasons for wanting to run every day.
Maybe you feel this will lead to improvements in your running by having more weekly volume. Perhaps you simply enjoy the feeling after a run and feel like your day is missing something without that. Or maybe your streaking.
Whatever the reason, getting out on the road every day is possible for most people, if done correctly
Running 7 days a week will most likely benefit your fitness. The one mistake many athletes make is performing easy workouts too hard. Maybe it’s due to not wanting to slow down their weekly average pace or they unwisely decided to run with a faster group. Whatever the cause, correctly paced rest day workouts will likely lead to positive gains in your running.
Keep in mind the purpose of a rest day, which is to allow adaptation to recent workout stimuli. Rest days should never interfere with this adaptation process. Rest day training should also never interfere with future training.
Something else to consider is people may not run hard enough to truly require a day of complete rest every week. If they do truly require that full day off, it is entirely possible the training is too intense or their day to day recovery is not adequate.
Whether you are looking to just add an extra day of running to your week, or indeed hoping to run every day, here are some thoughts to keep in mind:
1) The rest day movements should be stimulating, not fatiguing.
During EZ or regeneration runs, avoiding music may help slow you down. Instead, catch up on podcasts or listen to nothing. Even running with your mouth closed can put you at a good recovery pace.
2) If it’s intense, don’t do it.
Anything intense is very demanding to the neurological and muscular systems of a body. The point of such training is to induce fatigue and damage to prompt adaptation. On a rest day, no HIIT, no hill sprints, no squat jumps. At most during a regeneration run, perform the occasional short stride.
3) Do what you wish to focus on.
That is, if you are a runner, don’t swim on rest days. Run easy and short instead. While swimming or cycling on a rest day may keep a runner from running too hard, running easy on a rest day will benefit running more than swimming will. The only time swimming or cycling may be a better choice is leading up to a race. This is a time when recovery takes priority over improving your fitness.
4) Don’t warm up.
Instead, do the warm up as the rest day workout. For example, a typical warm up may include 20 minutes of very easy running with some strides, drills, dynamic stretching, and maybe a lunge matrix. For an easy day, basically execute a warm up and cool down with no real workout between them.
5) The Pace
A nice rule of thumb for recovery runs is they are done approximately at 1.3 to 1.4X your 5k pace. So, if your current 5k fitness is a 7 minute per mile, a 9:00 to 9:45 recovery run pace is generally appropriate.
What advice or rules do you follow for your rest days?
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