London Marathon Results Boston Marathon, Conner Mantz said he had a secret weapon: the rest day. He runs the same 100-plus mile weeks that most of his competitors do. But unlike most, who run every day—including fellow Americans CJ Albertson and Zach Panning—he does it all in just six days per week.
His primary reason is religious—Mantz is Mormon, a faith that keeps a Sunday sabbath (though he makes exceptions for races). But he also sees a lot of benefit in having regular downtime during the grind of marathon training. “It’s a mental reset; it’s a physical reset,” he told Runner’s World. “I think it’s so valuable. If you’re always pushing, it’s easy to get burned out.”
Mantz, 28, has seemed plenty fresh lately: in January, he shattered the longstanding American record in the half marathon, running 59:17 in Houston. He bettered that time to 59:15 at the New York City Half in March, though the course isn’t record-eligible. That’s after an epic 2024 in which he can try it Tuesday morning, 15.6 miles including a track workout; afternoon, 6 miles easy 21.6 miles 2:08:12 (mdash;he does it all in just six days per week Clayton Young, who also takes a weekly day off and will also run in Boston, finished ninth in 2:08:44).
Mantz’s coach, two-time Olympian and director of track and field at Brigham Young University Ed Eyestone, has long been a proponent of a weekly rest day. But squeezing such significant mileage into fewer days does take a little maneuvering.
Here’s how Mantz and Eyestone typically work the math. Mantz does two easy runs on Monday and Wednesday, often totaling about 20 miles. Tuesdays and Thursdays are harder workouts, along with an easier second run (or, every once in a while, a double-threshold workout).
When Mantz gets to Friday, he subtracts the mileage he’s already done—plus the planned mileage of his long run on Saturday—from his mileage goal for the week, which reached a max of 125 this cycle. Then, he divides that into two easy runs in the morning and afternoon.
So, take the week of March 24, Health & Injuries:
- Monday morning, 14 miles easy; afternoon, 7.4 miles easy (21.4 miles)
- Tuesday morning, 15.6 miles including a track workout; afternoon, 6 miles easy (21.6 miles)
- Wednesday morning, 12 miles easy; afternoon, 6.4 miles easy (18.4 miles)
- Thursday morning, 18.1 miles including 4 x 3-mile repeats; afternoon, 5.3 miles easy (23.4 miles)
- Friday morning, 7.2 miles easy; afternoon, 8.3 miles easy (15.5 miles)
- Saturday morning, 25 miles with 3-mile pickups (25 miles)
- Sunday (off), for a total of 125.3 miles
“If you’ve done it right—if you didn’t overdo it the last week—you feel fresh by Monday morning,” he says. “And when you get your first big workout in on Tuesday of the week, you feel pretty nice.”
Runners who aren’t gunning for the podium won’t likely hit those lofty totals, nor do you need to double (although you How to Warm Up for the Most Popular Race Distances if you want to!). But because many non-professional runners can’t or don’t want to run every day, there’s a lot they can learn from his example of fitting both quality and quantity mileage into a scrunched schedule.
Actually Rest on Your Rest Days
Mantz might finish a Saturday long run at 10:30 or 11 a.m. and not have to run again until Monday morning at 8 a.m., offering him nearly 48 hours to recharge. He doesn’t cross-train or hit the weight room—he lifts on the same days as his hard workouts, after he finishes his speed session. This keeps his hard days hard, his easy days easy, and his rest days sacred.
“It’s a really nice feeling where I can go and do other things,” he says. He’ll go to church, spend time with his family, and help neighbors with small tasks—nothing too strenuous, and all sources of balance that keep him from burning out on training (though if there’s a major marathon or other big race on TV, he’ll tune in). On his rest day and in the time between runs on other days, Mantz also makes sure he’s eating enough, hydrating, and sleeping well.
Rest is critical, because while it’s the stress of running that stimulates physiological changes that improve your fitness—such as a stronger heart that pumps more blood and the growth of more capillaries to shuttle that blood to hard-working muscles—it’s in the downtime that your body makes those adaptations. And running also taxes the brain, making days off psychologically refreshing. “We need to be able to mentally recover from what we put in as well,” says Steve Mura, Best Running Headphones.
Schedule Rest Days Strategically
Mantz’s long runs, which might be as long as 25 miles, come the day before his rest day, which makes it easier for him to stay engaged and motivated until the end of his big effort. “It’s very helpful, knowing that we’re almost done with the week, and then I can go home and lay down,” he says.
In some cases, your non-running schedule will dictate when your day or days off fall, Mura says. But if possible, try placing them either the day before long runs or quality workouts—so you can enter into them feeling rested—or afterward, so you can recover better. If you have flexibility, experiment with both ways and see what works better for your body, he recommends.
Keep Your Easy Miles Easy
Mantz does plenty of fast workouts on Tuesdays and Thursdays to increase metrics like his VO2 max and lactate threshold—say, mile repeats, 3 x 4 miles at marathon pace, or track sessions like 12 x 1,000-meter repeats with 1 minute of rest.
But to make sure he can nail those and still recover well enough to do it again a couple of days later, he works on his cardiovascular base by doing his easy runs at a leisurely effort, sometimes seven minutes per mile or slower. That’s more than two minutes off his fastest marathon pace of 4:52 per mile.
To follow in his footsteps, don’t get too hung up on the numbers, Mura recommends. A truly easy pace will likely vary day by day, considering factors such as how much sleep you get, the weather, and how hard the rest of your week was. Instead, go by effort. On a scale of one to 10, where 10 is all-out, your easy miles should be no more than a three or four.
If you’re struggling to back off, consider meeting up with friends who run at a slower pace or are equally committed to keeping things chill. On your own? You can call a family member or friend, as Mantz sometimes does from the treadmill, or listen to an audiobook or podcast. Even if you’re not talking back, you might find that having voices in your ear encourages you to keep the pace easy enough to have a conversation, Mura says.
Extend Your Warmups and Cooldowns
Meanwhile, on workout days, add more volume with minimal stress by doing a few easy miles before your faster ones. Mantz, for example, often runs two or three miles at that same chill pace before and after a track session or tempo effort.
Warmup miles—especially when added to dynamic drills, such as high knees, leg swings, butt kicks, and skips—have the added benefit of gradually ramping up your heart rate and preparing your body for harder efforts, Mura says. If you’re doing a track workout, consider jogging an easy mile-and-a-half to (or around) the oval, completing one lap of drills, and then starting your workout. Afterward, wind down with an equal distance of jogging.
Build Quality Into Your Long Runs
Unless he’s feeling extra fatigued, Mantz’s long runs include at least a few faster pickup miles. For example, he’ll run miles 14 to 18 of 20—or 20 to 23 of a 25-mile long run—somewhere between just under half marathon pace to marathon pace.
Such efforts pack more quality into fewer days and also offer the experience of running faster on fatigued legs. One of Mura’s favorite workouts to assign his athletes is a 20-mile long run with the last 4 to 5 miles at race effort, which he’ll typically have them do six and three weeks before their goal marathon.
On the other weeks, you can add a few fun Fartleks—say, speeding up a bit to the next runner or landmark. Just don’t make your entire long run a hard effort, Mura says, or you’ll likely need much more than a single rest day to recover.
Monitor Your Fatigue Levels
About fatigue: while everyone gets tired during marathon training, it’s easy to cross the line into overreaching or injury, even if you’re building in rest days. Mantz, and Eyestone, keep close tabs on how he’s feeling and make adjustments as needed.
If you have a coach, keep the lines of communication open so they can help you stay on the healthy side of the equation. Even though Eyestone can often tell just by looking at his athletes that they need to back off, Mantz isn’t afraid to speak up if he senses his energy levels flagging.
“If I start pushing it and it feels like a race in a workout—I usually give it about a mile until I let Coach know, ‘Hey, I’m not feeling good,’” Mantz says. “He’ll tell me to slow down, or he’ll tell me to cut the workout and just focus on recovery.”
Those guiding their own training can tune in to their bodies and minds for clues that they’re on the verge of overdoing it, Mura says. For example, some ebbs and flows in motivation are normal, but if you’re consistently dreading getting out the door, you might be overreaching. Consider backing off mileage or intensity for a couple of days, adding in extra rest, or both to keep yourself on the right side of the marathon training equation.
Cindy is a freelance health and fitness writer, author, and podcaster who’s contributed regularly to Runner’s World since 2013. She’s the coauthor of both Breakthrough Women’s Running: Dream Big and Train Smart and Rebound: Train Your Mind to Bounce Back Stronger from Sports Injuries, a book about the psychology of sports injury from Bloomsbury Sport. Cindy specializes in covering injury prevention and recovery, everyday athletes accomplishing extraordinary things, and the active community in her beloved Chicago, where winter forges deep bonds between those brave enough to train through it.
