Rest Day Vs Easy Run

[IainR]

At the moment I do 6 days a week running,

Typically do 40-50 mpw, normally 42-47, with 2000-4000 m of ascent, typically 2800m ish.

At the moment this contains a track session, either a hill reps or fast pace hill run, and a fast road run then general off road/hill runs on top. So I aim for 3 (minimum 2) quality sessions a week.

Saturday is my 'rest day', when I play a game of football, keeper so not overly aerobically active, but still wake up Sunday with the usual post game aches and pains, then do my long run.

I'm considering ditching the rest day for a flatish 3-6 mile trail run, so in effect I'd not have a rest day and running in the morning before a game.

What's better?

Is there a hard and fast rule over rest days. Is slow recovery run as good as a rest day or just 'junk miles' that give you no real benefit so you may as well rest.

Any advice? comments?

[daz h]

At the moment I do 6 days a week running,

Typically do 40-50 mpw, normally 42-47, with 2000-4000 m of ascent, typically 2800m ish.

At the moment this contains a track session, either a hill reps or fast pace hill run, and a fast road run then general off road/hill runs on top. So I aim for 3 (minimum 2) quality sessions a week.

Saturday is my 'rest day', when I play a game of football, keeper so not overly aerobically active, but still wake up Sunday with the usual post game aches and pains, then do my long run.

I'm considering ditching the rest day for a flatish 3-6 mile trail run, so in effect I'd not have a rest day and running in the morning before a game.

What's better?

Is there a hard and fast rule over rest days. Is slow recovery run as good as a rest day or just 'junk miles' that give you no real benefit so you may as well rest.

Any advice? comments?

rest days dont always work for me
i run 6 days a week but have started doing a long 4 / 5 hour fast walk on my rest day
not sure if its doing owt but ive ran faster times than ive ever in two races that ive run for the last 5 years
my legs seem fresher than if i just stop for a day and do nothing , they dont seem tight anymore
so i think a good walk is better than haing a rest

[Alf Tupper]

i reckon thats true , i feel worse for doing nowt.

[dominion]

A few years back I went to a seminar which had some expert sports scientist on the panel. She claimed that the de-training effect, ie losing fitness kicked in with as little as one days missed training. Most people including several decent coaches plus a GB international were rather sceptical about it.

Someone else I know, a GP and decent triathlete, said once that you should have a days rest every week otherwise you become immune to the effects of training (I think was how he explained it).

I've always preferred to run 7 days a week with the odd day off every 3-4 weeks, I also used to prefer a light speed session on the Thursday before a weekend race, otherwise I used to feel lethargic by Saturday.

These days I mostly follow Milli's plan....

[Pinno]

i reckon thats true , i feel worse for doing nowt.

Same here, I have had a hip injury for 3-4 weeks and it has drove me mad doing hardly anything. I had got up to 135 mile a month when the injury occurred. Managed to run last week 5 times gently building again from 2.5m mile up to 6.5m yesterday 30m in total. short one tonight then hoping to be back up to the 40 mile mark by the weekend.

Hard to take a rest day though. I feel worse for not running even a two mile gently jog is better than nowt. Is it a mental thing?

[A.P.E Knott]

It all depends how serious you are and if you want to reach you potential.
And your age is a big factor.
I used to be a Goal keeper and a wicket keeper opening bat at cricket.
I decided the only way to see how good i could be was to drop everything else and concentrate on running.
I just could not recover and do justice to all of the sports.
I was and still are not any good realy but at least i had a go.
I am 46 now and my advise to you would be to do one or the other and build in rest days.
If on the other hand you enjoy doing both you will have to accept you will not be as good as you can be and will have to work out the rest days around everthing else.