What's your cycle ?

[Chewy]

I'm a newbie, I just make it up as I go along so...

I decided I'd run Monday, Wednesday, Friday then have a weekend off and back on Monday. I don't know why but it felt sort of right then I notice people are ignoring the calendar and running alternate days.

What's your cycle is there a good or bad ?

[mrqwest Graduate]

There's no good or bad - as long as you leave a days rest in between each run to avoid injury then that's great. I started off running the same as you, keeping the weekend free and running Monday, Wednesday & Friday but I soon realised that after a week or so, I was actually missing running and on the Sunday, after two days rest I was almost 'irritable' (ask my wife!)

So I decided to run on alternate days and taking that extra rest day *if* I needed it.

Do what works for you

[Chewy in reply to mrqwest]

I'm feeling the same way, by Sunday I'm missing the running. I might change my routine.

[wilmacgh Graduate]

Fit it round your life and don't get too hung up on it.

I've been reading about "rest" days and the advice seems to be it's OK if you rest the main running muscles doing something different. Or doing nothing at all!

I tend to focus on the weekends. Some Saturday's I do a Parkrun but if I'm going out with my walking group or got family things to do (buying school shoes today), I run on Sundays and try a new route or a more challenging Podcast. Then I fit in 2 or 3 runs during the week.

[mrslazy Graduate]

I do two shorter runs in the week and then a longer run usually on Sunday when I am not so time pressured. I think this is why it works for me, I don't have to fit in with anyone else and if someone has really annoyed me of,I smile nicely walk away and go running, then all is well. Hehe

[Chewy]

Thanks everyone this is all sound advice especially that I shouldn't worry too much about it, that's very true.

[Minuette Graduate]

I used to run Monday, Wednesday and Friday and have the weekend off, but when I started to do a parkrun every week, and went back to work on a Wednesday, I changed my days to Monday, Thursday and Saturday. As long as I have one day off between runs and two days off once a week, it works for me

[auranya Graduate]

I'm aiming to run alternate days so I get into good habits. So far I haven't missed a day yet, having two days off consecutively seems a bit silly.

[CaroleC Graduate]

I used to start the new running week (so, wk1r1, or wk2r1) on the Friday; that way if the extra effort caused aches and pains, I had two whole days rest before I did r2 and r3 on the following Mon and Wed. Then start the next week on the Friday again. It worked for me.

CaroleC

[Rollertoaster Graduate]

I've done every other day up to now (just done W4R1 tonight). It's worked for me so far, but if my legs need an extra day's rest, I won't hesitate to give it to them!

[Ribena]

This week will be Monday, then either tomorrow afternoon (Wednesday) or Thursday am, depending on what time I get back from London tomorrow, and therefore either Friday or Saturday for the third one