Nick's Running Tips: Recovery Days

This month’s running tips from coach Nick Haugher: Recovery Days

Recovery days for runners are as important, if not more important, than the hard days. If we can’t recover properly from the hard workout, the long run, or even the race, we will run into energy problems and at the worst case, injury. So let’s talk recovery runs!

Slow days are okay!

Yeah you heard that right, running slow and easy is okay to do and as I’ve learned throughout my career, highly important. Don’t get me wrong, running fast is fun. But as we push ourselves day in and day out, week in and week out. we must emphasize slow, easy days so that we can allow the body to bounce back from the hard efforts we put in. What I tell myself as I go through a hard training week is, “keep the hard days hard and the easy days easy."

Extra easy days are okay!

Sometimes our body just needs a little extra time to fully recover from a hard effort. There have been too many occasions to count where I’ve asked my coach to give me one more easy day before a big workout because I feel I wasn’t recovered enough to properly approach the next hard workout that was scheduled. So listen to your body. Would it be so bad to give yourself a little more time to recover if it means being able to hit the next workout well? I would suggest take the extra day and then reflect on how much better you felt because you did so. It’s important to include recovery run days in your routine.

Conversational

So how slow should we run? I like to keep the pace conversational on recovery run days. Whether you are running with someone or not, you should be able to easily carry on a conversation with the person next to you. This is a good rule of thumb to ensure you are in an aerobic zone that is easy to maintain and leaves you feeling fresh and recovered the next day.

Don’t be afraid!

Trust me, I like to stick to the plan as best I can. When I have 8 miles scheduled I will almost always run the 8 miles easy. But there are days where I know I need a little less to feel properly recovered on the day. The day after a workout can be a hard day. There are times I simply need to run a little less than what I had originally planned to run. So when it feels like the run is dragging and it’s a big effort just to run easy pace, pull back the mileage by a mile or two, or by 10-20 minutes. Sometimes a little pull back can make all the difference in your recovery.

When in doubt, run slower and run a little less. Keep the easy days easy and the hard days hard and as always, enjoy!! Recovery run days are an important part of your training regime.

About the Author:

Nick Hauger is a two time All American from the University of Portland. He has been running professionally for NAZ Elite sponsored by HOKA for 3 years. His PR’s consist of 13:55 in the 5k, 28:43 in the 10k, 1:03:48 in the half marathon and 2:12:59 in the marathon, and he holds the American Record for 10 miles run on the track. Nick likes to place an emphasis on assigning a variety of workout types so that runners can toe the line with confidence knowing they have felt all sorts of pacing types in training.

“Running is a discovery of finding out just how far you can go, and that begins with confidence in yourself.”

If you’d like to work with Nick, contact us to learn more about our virtual running training programs.