A PROPERLY EXECUTED RECOVERY RUN SHOULD BE A COMPULSORY ELEMENT OF YOUR TRAINING WEEK. HERE’S HOW TO DO ONE, WHEN AND WHY

EASY GAINS

WORDS: TINA CHANTREY

The more running becomes a part of your life, the more you realise there’s so much to learn about this sport. Training regularly will improve your ability and performance, but overtraining, and neglecting rest, can lead to injury and illness. One aspect of active rest (rather than passive rest, which would be a day off from running) many overlook or don’t fully understand, is the recovery run.

WHY DO WE NEED RECOVERY RUNS?

Your training definitely shouldn’t be at full effort all the time. This can be a tough truth for those relatively new to the sport, who have fallen in love with those feel-good endorphins. The harder you run, the more these feelings can flood your bloodstream and quickly you find yourself in an evil circle of running where you are always pushing. Every run, you force your body to perform to its optimum. Trying to get the perceived maximum from every session.

“In my experience, most recreational runners feel time-crunched and have the perception that working hard will elicit the most ‘bang for buck’,” says Tom Bennett, a high-performance endurance coach from T2 Coaching (t2coaching.co.uk).