Importance of rest days

[Vragtes]

After injuries and Covid last year, I gradually got back to a running pattern with which I was happy. It suits my agenda, body and expectations of what I wanted running to achieve. This pattern is 3 x8k runs a week on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Occasionally, I’d do one 10k on Friday.

Then on Thursday last week, a rest day, it was sunny in York and I decided to walk my 8k run just to be outside. When I’d got about halfway round, I began to feel really tired. My legs felt heavy even though I was just walking. Realising I was 4k from home, I decided to have a rest and sat on Millennium Bridge over the river. My legs were shaking and I even contemplated phoning my better half to collect me in the car. Instead, after the rest, I slowly walked the rest of the way home.

I felt very tired. No discomfort, just fatigue. I decided to skip the Friday run (the next day) and rest until Monday.

Yesterday (Monday), feeling a little anxious that the fatigue would be back, I decided on a 5k rather than the usual 8k. All went well. Legs didn’t feel heavy (apart from the frequent first five minutes lurgy) and my time was slightly faster per km (5’30”). So tomorrow, intend to do 5km again and see. If all ok, will possibly do 8k on Friday.

So my possibly erroneous conclusion is that the 8km walk the day following the 8km run was too much for my old legs and I need the rest!

[Chinkoflight]

It's a theory, you could test it by repeating. OR NOT!

[Vragtes Graduate10 in reply to Chinkoflight]

🙂 Yes, I could, but won’t.

[MissUnderstanding Administrator Graduate10]

You’ve been really sensible to give yourself some proper rest after that. There are a lot of reasons you could have felt a bit off-maybe it was the volume of exercise, maybe a bit of dehydration or coming down with something. Hopefully whatever it was won’t trouble you again! It sounds quite scary feeling shaky like that.

[Vragtes Graduate10]

Thanks for the reply. Yes, it was a bit alarming at the time. Interesting that you mentioned dehydration. I normally have a decent drink before the run and about a pint afterwards. The day before the incident, I got distracted after the run with builders arriving and their questions dealt with, so I missed my post run drink.

I do tend to need reminding to drink more. I think dehydration may well have been the cause of this unpleasant event.

Edit: when I say “a pint” I mean tap water, not beer!

[MissUnderstanding Administrator Graduate10 in reply to Vragtes]

That is interesting! I’ve had that happen a few rare times to me and it’s always been (as far as I can tell) not drinking or eating enough, or a bug on the way. It’s so easy for all of us to get a bit distracted occasionally and life never makes it easy to prepare perfectly for runs! Hopefully it’ll just be a one off for you and perhaps a prompt to drink a little more regularly. I would most definitely have a spinning head if I had a pint before running 🍺!!!

[MrBassmanjazz]

(I love Mon, Wed, Fri. It just makes sense )

[Vragtes Graduate10]

Mr Bassmanjazz, thanks for your comment. Yes, running Monday, Wednesday and Friday works great for me. Gives me rest days which I need.