Your article made me wonder what the mental and physical sigs are that my body has recovered enough from a quality workout to be in an ideal place to push hard again. If recovery windows look different for different people, how do we know for ourselves when we we haven't waited long enough or we have waited too long.
Great question. I have found that for most people, 2-3 days is sufficient, but there is variability. In general, the amount of rest should occur in proportion to the amount of stress. The harder the workout, the longer it will take you to get back to baseline and supercompensate. If the workout is light, you might be able to run hard again 48 hours later. If you run a hard 5K, the recovery might be closer to 4-5 days. If you keep a training log, you might be able to uncover these trends by looking at times when you ran fast and when you had setbacks related to high training loads.
The biggest takeaway is to listen to your body rather than operating on fixed timeframes. Most people are formulaic with their workouts and blindly follow a weekly schedule with no regard to how their body feels (i.e., persistent soreness or fatigue are red flags that the recovery process isn't over yet). Don't ignore what your body is telling you. If you're logging summer miles and training independently, I think an essential skill to learn is the willingness to move a workout by a day or two rather than being chained to a plan written weeks earlier.
Your article made me wonder what the mental and physical sigs are that my body has recovered enough from a quality workout to be in an ideal place to push hard again. If recovery windows look different for different people, how do we know for ourselves when we we haven't waited long enough or we have waited too long.
Great question. I have found that for most people, 2-3 days is sufficient, but there is variability. In general, the amount of rest should occur in proportion to the amount of stress. The harder the workout, the longer it will take you to get back to baseline and supercompensate. If the workout is light, you might be able to run hard again 48 hours later. If you run a hard 5K, the recovery might be closer to 4-5 days. If you keep a training log, you might be able to uncover these trends by looking at times when you ran fast and when you had setbacks related to high training loads.
The biggest takeaway is to listen to your body rather than operating on fixed timeframes. Most people are formulaic with their workouts and blindly follow a weekly schedule with no regard to how their body feels (i.e., persistent soreness or fatigue are red flags that the recovery process isn't over yet). Don't ignore what your body is telling you. If you're logging summer miles and training independently, I think an essential skill to learn is the willingness to move a workout by a day or two rather than being chained to a plan written weeks earlier.