Every Other Day?

[Dribblin_spaniel]

Hi - sorry to sound like a complete noob but I have a question that's been bugging me and I can't reconcile it myself....I love my running and do it every other day (Sat/Mon/Wed) with 2 days off on Thurs and Fri...and then on Saturday I start the next week's run. My question is this though, is there a reason why I couldn't start the next week on the Friday - daft I know - but the thinking behind it is that the course lasts 9 weeks....If i do 1 week every 6 days then I will finish it sooner (about a week)....I dont want to push myself too hard, but I miss the run on the 2 days off!!!? Any thoughts would be much appreciated...

[gdeann Graduate]

You should be okay as long as you allow a rest day between runs. I know personally, the every other day was fine until I reached the longer runs. At that point, I even allowed an extra day or two between runs for recovery. On your recovery days, feel free to work other muscles by cross-training. Glad to read your enjoying this running business! Gayle

[Dribblin_spaniel in reply to gdeann]

Thanks for the reply. Fortunately I'm just about to start W3R1 so nothing to heavy at the moment, though I'm not sure about the 3 mins bit! At the moment I feel absolutely fine - no aches or anything (which was very surprising!!) so I want to keep going while I can!!! I'd never been able to run, having been the fat kid at school etc, but now 40 years on and finding I can do it (so far) I feel amazing and I don't want to lose the buzz....!

[greenlegs Graduate]

I mostly did alternate days (so some weekends it was Sat and sometimes Sun) and completed the programme in 8 weeks - but as Gayle says, the last few weeks are pretty heavy work, and I think I might well have been better off with an extra rest day at the ends of weeks 5, 6, 7 and 8.

Great that you're enjoying it so much. It's wonderful to find you can do something that you thought you couldn't, isn't it?

[Dribblin_spaniel in reply to greenlegs]

Cheers for the reply....Think I'll give it a go and see what happens - can always take another day or 2 off if I need it (it's not like there is a massive clock telling me exactly when I should finish). Run now, rest later (week 5 onwards!).

[mark909 Graduate]

You're better off following the program rather than overdoing it and risking injury.

[Dribblin_spaniel in reply to mark909]

Cheers - Feeling absolutely fine at the moment so think while it's fairly "low level" then I may push through and then when I get to week onwards (which seems to be a hard one judging by the comments) then I can take my time then....(fingers crossed!).

[TX-Bluebonnet Graduate]

I did the every other day pattern without any issues. As long as it's not painful and you don't feel overly worn out then you should be fine. You know your body best, so listen to it.

[GoogleMe Graduate]

The programme allows for every other day. I did pretty much every other day once I'd finally cracked Week 1 which took weeks and weeks (so I already appreciated that the "week" element of the programme was just a convenient term) and it is still what I aim for 10 months on from graduation. Set days work for some people, which will mean a couple of days off.

It may depend on how hard you are driving yourself ie if you are solely focused on completing each activity or trying to run faster, what else you are doing and what kind of surface you are running on. I never run on roads/pavements (I am fortunate to have that option) and even off road I avoid doing too many consecutive harder surfaces