Running Tired.

[IainR]

Iain, i think the view that rest days don't work is perhaps more accurately, rest days don't work for you. Much depends upon the individual. I find that they do work (for me), esp when i'm training with a goal in mind and looking to move up a level. I remember training for rounds and marathons and banging out 15-20 days on the bounce and seeing a gradual improvement. I started swapping junk mileage (4-5 miles easy) for rest and stretching (30 boring but useful minutes) and the improvement became more pronounced. Mileage went down to about 45ish from 60 and my road pbs got smashed.

It worked for me, but perhaps my rate of recovery is slower than yours (my running clearly is). The principle, which applies to any athlete of any ability is to measure your runs and know your form, and then to experiment with things until you find out what works for you. You're obviously a fine runner and i think it could be dangerous for you to state blankly that rest days don't work because someone for whom they would might see your form, take that advice and inhibit their progress or worse, get injured.

I didn't say rest days don't work with any seriousness... they do they just need the right setting.. but people here taper of no mileage.. you taper OFF.. so you need to be coming off something for a taper to work.. to be honest I've only seriously tapered once and I as desperate to taper as I'd done a 16 weeks of 75-95 mpw's and was really tired.

Fell runners don't periodise at all though, well most don't, a good 3-4 month period of steady mileage will set up a nice endurance base for the summer.

I just think you can only expect to feel fresh for a few races a year. If people race 40 times a year they can't expect to get fitter if they rest before and after each race. I only have 5-10 goal races a year, the others, like Kinder Trog, will be done as standard training runs. I'll run them hard but today I'll run 12 miles, cycle 30 miles, but for Wyddfa I'll have 2-3 days off that week.

Once you hit 45-60 miles I think that's different. People are talking about rest days off very low mileage, of less than 20-30 miles. If they are so time constrained then they should run when they can. From 0-~50 miles pw the improvement is pretty much linear, the more you run the quicker you run. From ~ 50ish onwards its different. Some people just can't manage a much higher load, others just don't like the tiredness which comes with higher mileage of 70-90 miles a week.

Don't underestimate the importance of those 60 mile weeks. Yes after you ran them and started resting and training cleverly you got better. That doesn't mean the 60 mpw didn't help, they could be the very reason you were running better afterwards as you would have had the physiological benefit of them.