Taking a Week Off

[dindy]

I have increased my 3 runs a week to 5 k on Monday, 30 mins on Wednesday which can be as I fancy ,slow intervals etc followed by another 5k on Friday. This seems to be working out ok for me and I will stick with this routine for a while. I run at 7 am and by the evening my legs are a bit stiff & sore especially my calves.

Next day I am fine and ready for the next run the day after. We started on Sat to decorate the kitchen and first job was to paint the border on top of the walls so I naturally used a step ladder. I was standing on the step ladder with one foot on the worktop and my other on the step ladder and to reach certain parts I had to go onto my tip toes with foot on the ladder.

Normally no problems on step ladders but this time my calves were hurting like mad and going into cramp. It was really painful and I had to keep on stopping to stretch my calves and massage them. This told me that although my calves feel ok after a run by the time the next run comes around they had not really recovered.I decided since I will be up & down the steps most of the week to have the week off from running and give my calves time to recover. They do say every few month take a week off and since I have been going since July really it will do no harm. I am hoping by Monday I will be rearing to go and feel none the worse for a week off.

I think it is all to do with age well that is my excuse. If I was in my 20`s- 40`s it would be no problem but being an old fudge sometimes need more time to recover. It is like the other day when I done 6k when I should of stopped at 5k. The next run was terrible I felt tired and legs ached so had a much shorter run than normal.

I will make sure in the future if I do a much longer run than I should do I will plan for the following run to be short & slow until I can cope with the 6k.

[Hidden]

Taking a rest very so often doesn’t hurt at all. I've been doing a big run challenge and one thing I’ve noticed is that after a couple of days’ rest my km times are substantially better than after a few days of running.

And definitely for me varying the distances also very important. We all come to our own recipe I think. Building slowly is definitely the key.

[Millsie-J Graduate]

Try stretches every day, not just on run days. I find it helps a lot.

[RunBrianRun Graduate]

Try calf compression socks. I swear by them.

[Oldfloss Administrator Graduate]

A rest is as good as a change

As Millsie-J says.. stretch every day... Also.. give those calves a good roll... you will feel the benefits