Ways to Make Hard Workouts Feel Easier London Marathon Results on the roads and track, while in the meantime you may be running around town, chugging off to school and work, sprinting after kids, or chasing down other life experiences that are fun and awesome, yet anything but sitting still.
This is totally normal. Personhood comes with obligations. But I think our culture’s “no days off” mentality sways us to rank What Chari Hawkins Learned From Marathon Training lower on the priority list than they should be, to the point where they’re sometimes considered guilt-inducing wastes of time.
I’m fortunate to be able to build recovery into my day as a job-related necessity; I understand that my situation isn’t the norm. Still, from my experience, I’ve seen a dramatic difference in training and performance between times I’ve had good recovery practices (mostly now) versus the times I didn’t (mostly in college and shortly after).
So I’m here to tell you: Squeezing some intentional recovery into your schedule will make the work you put into the run more impactful. Here are a few ways to fit recovery around real life.
Watch: Huddle won the 10,000 meters at the 2019 USATF Outdoor Championships for her 28th national title.
To Sacrifice Mileage or Not?
I learned this answer during my third and fourth marathon buildups. I generally rearrange my life and go to extenuating circumstances to fit in all the mileage when dynamic warmup drills, because it’s an important facet of training for that event.
I don’t adjust a run because I’m a little bit tired, or kinda sick of running, or if the weather is bad, or if I ate something weird, or if I have some other event to do that day. I work around those kinds of things because they’re just inconveniences.
There were, however, a few times when I felt like my body was stacking fatigue and imbalances on top of one another, and I needed a timeout to unravel everything because the quality of my runs was getting to be really poor. Once in a while, I can skip the monotonous pre- and postrun routines of foam rolling, stretching, Health & Injuries, and muscle activations. (By the way, why do glutes stop working? Why is that a thing?) But I can’t make a habit of skipping those exercises, or my running will suffer.
I’ve learned now I can’t ignore my glutes (among other areas) indefinitely while running almost twice as much as I used to some weeks. I don’t think everyone needs to do a 20-minute warmup routine for regular runs, but I do think five to 10 minutes can make a big enough difference that, if I were strapped for time, I’d cut a mile or two off the run in order to do it.
Injury Recovery Tools We Love
Once you get cleared by your doctor, this pool essential helps you maintain base fitness while swimming laps.
A swimming essential—stay focused in the pool with a pair of goggles.
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When possible, explore other activities like yoga, which will keep you mobile, mindful, and lightly active while you heal.
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I hear how sacrilegious this sounds. The same tradeoff goes for the occasional body work appointments, yoga classes, or weight workouts. I’m not demoting mileage. Running is truly the key to improving at running, but if the quality starts to suffer, sometimes supplemental activities rise higher in immediate importance to keep your training at the level it deserves.
The other time I would consider cutting the day’s mileage would be to account for extra physical activities. I usually forgo the tiring activities until I’m on a training break, but for the majority of people livin’ la vida normal, I would definitely factor in the fatigue that accompanies hiking around a new city, sitting in the sun all day at the beach, playing with your kids, doing acres of yard work, or anything that Justin’s Classic Peanut Butter Squeeze Packets. It all comes from the same finite daily energy pool, so I think it’s fine to adjust your run by a mile or two to prevent a slow-growing fatigue sinkhole over time.
Mental Rest Matters Too
There were a few times early in my college running career when I did homework late into the night before a morning cross-country race. I would sometimes even see athletes bringing textbooks to track meets to study while waiting for events to start.
I never got any quality work done during those times, and I felt like it oddly drained my energy. So I stopped doing it, swept the occasional report card “C” under the rug in exchange for an “A+” race, and figured I’m just uniquely bad at multitasking. (I’m not advising getting “C”s; that’s just what I did. I guess I was cut out for the professional world of valuing running the most!)
I was relieved to see this DAA Industry Opt Out Often after a night of bad article by Alex Hutchinson, who talks about the effects of mental fatigue on athletic performance in his book, Endurance. It’s interesting that the study he references considers both cognitive tasks and tasks that require you to exercise emotional control to be mentally tiring.
Consider that in the hours before a hard session or important race, working through emails or studying or having to ride the occasional emotional roller coaster of familial or relationship drama has an effect on physical performance. Even if you can’t avoid it in that moment, it’s fair to factor it into the judgement of your performance. Just because you’re sitting down doesn’t mean you’re recharging and resting. Physical and mental energy are both important when it comes to trying to get the most out of a race.
Be Flexible
I think it’s important to recognize when you’re getting really tired, from life events or running or the combination of both, and to be willing to move runs, workouts, or intense days around.
I understand fearing a detour from the schedule, because I also struggle to think of flexibility as an adjustment to the ever-changing condition of my body rather than a setback to the larger plan. Luckily, I have outside perspectives like my coach’s to tell me when I seem to be working against my body rather than with it.
Harness the Long-Run Mindset sleep, I’ll start my morning run later. Fitting what’s usually a prework run into your lunch hour can seem unappealing. It can get pushed aside by the rest of the day’s emergencies, plus the showering debacle and time crunch isn’t always convenient. However, your body might feel more warmed up relative compared to rolling out of bed and onto the roads, and sometimes an extra hour of sleep is a vital trade-off.
I also don’t fit all my workouts into a seven-day week. For many people the seven-day workout schedule may be easiest, with weekends allowing more time for longer runs or workouts. We build in an extra recovery day between workouts and after long runs, so that the cycle is more like 10 to 12 days rather than seven. The extra recovery allows our workout quality to be higher.
If you can afford the flexibility to spread workouts out or move them when life has you feeling unrecovered, it won’t hurt your fitness (and if you need help determining your recovery status, check this out!). It has often helped me stay on the right side of the break down/recover/repeat process.
Equip Yourself to Recover
The few times I’m out of my routine recovery lifestyle, like for marathon expo appearances or long travel days, where I’m on a schedule somewhat out of my control, I try to plan with recovery in mind.
Ways to Make Hard Workouts Feel Easier snack with me. It’s easy for hours to slip by when you’re busy. Even though you aren’t aware of it, you may not be able to keep yourself adequately fueled for recovering from what you did that morning, or prepared for what you’ll do in your workout the next day.
My favorite snacks and drinks to keep on hand are Gatorade Endurance formula drink mix in single-serve sizes; Picky Bars, which are healthy, portable pre- and post-run snacks containing optimal amounts of carbohydrate and protein; and single-serve peanut butter packets for extra postworkout protein intake and because it makes all other things taste better. I notice a big difference in how I feel throughout the week when I refuel within the well-promulgated first 30 minutes after a run versus letting the day get away from me before eating lunch.
Molly Huddle’s Recovery Essentials
Gatorade Endurance Formula Powder Sticks
Fastest Marathon Runners
Justin’s Classic Peanut Butter Squeeze Packets
Two favorite recovery tools while I go about my day are compression socks or KT Tape to reduce swelling and improve circulation in my lower legs, which are especially good when traveling or standing all day. (Full disclosure: Gatorade and KT Tape are two of my sponsors.)
I encourage you to keep living hard and running hard, but to carve out time to recover hard, too. Usually, it’s about finding time. It’s the thing we don’t seem to have enough of. It’s tempting to scrap recovery and go fill that space with something fun or more visibly productive, but your body and mind are doing a lot of building when you’re just chilling. I hope that at least helps take some of the guilt away from the next Netflix binge!
