It was sooo obvious--spacing my runs

Putting space between the important stuff has never been my strong suit.  My mom had her first four kids in five years.  My wife and I had our daughter and son a little more than 12 months apart.  Then we wised up and put a little more space between child #2 and child #3.  Since then I've learned the importance of spacing in running too.

For years I've run at the same time every day, in the mornings.  Morning running worked for all kinds of reasons—the family’s routine, my job, and overall because I’m a morning person.

Occasionally I’ve flexed around the demands of the day and squeezed in a noon time, afternoon, or evening run.  No problem.  But I've never consistently switched to running at a different time of day. 

That's because I've come to realize a lesson about the time of my runs.  It’s not the time of day I run as much as the spacing of my runs—the amount of recovery my body gets in between runs—that matters.

When I run at noon one day and return to running the next morning, that leaves only 18 hours between runs while missing roughly 25% of the normal recovery my body is accustomed to.  And when I run in the evening and then resume running the next morning, my recovery is cut in half.

For me getting 24 hours of recovery makes a big difference.  I’m convinced it’s the later hours of recovery are when my strength and flexibility returns.  Plus I’m re-energized and more mentally ready after a full 24 hour recovery.

When you love running just to re-charge and beat stress, spacing might not seem quite such a big deal. But when you love running and you want to make the most of your runs, spacing your runs matters.

This week we're focusing on those "It was so obvious,"  lessons about running that are right in front of our noses—the ones so obvious we need to be hit over the head with a club.  Hope you're planning to share your lessons on Take It And Run Thursday. 

But don't look too hard.  Those "It was so obvious" lessons about running tend to stare us right in the face.

Pace Yourself on Flickr by Qwurky

Comments

[Betsy]

Sorry, Tom, you lost me with that "I'm a morning person" bit. :)

[Andrew is getting fit]

I haven't been doing this all that long but one thing I learnt that seems obvious now is that you don't have to set a personal best in every training session.

[merrymishaps]

I only run 3-4 days a week. I try to avoid back-to-back runs; I definitely notice a difference when I run two days in a row!