Recovery Run Philosophy

I have a had a bit of a shift or epiphany when it comes to training, specifically this marathon cycle, and that's surrounding recovery runs. I've always been someone who takes recovery runs very seriously. Recovery is important and necessary, and for someone who has been injury prone in the past, it's something that I have to be on top of with my running, especially as the miles ramp up.

I train by heart rate, and have for the last few years. I let my heart rate dictate my recovery run pace. In the past I've used this as a tool to make sure I was running easy enough on these runs. I would start in the recovery zone, and if I got to talking, or as the legs would feel better, maybe toward the end of the run I'd creep out of that recovery zone, no big deal.

Since Toni has been gone for this training cycle, many of my recovery runs have been solo. This cycle I've taken a new strategy which is, see how low you can keep your heart rate on this run! My recovery runs are supposed to be under 148 or 150, but I see if I can keep them in the 130s. It's like a really fun slash really dumb game that keeps my mind off of my legs feeling like elephants are attached to each one. Usually I am only this diligent on my recovery runs the day after a long run, as that's when I really feel the gunk in my legs, but I also make sure to keep it easy after speedwork, even if my legs don't feel as junky. I can usually run a faster pace with the super low heart rate after speedwork, so I suspect my body just naturally recovers faster from the speed vs. the long.

This is such a shift from previous years where I used to think if my recovery pace wasn't X time than my goal race paces were just not even in the realm of possibility. Well guess what? I used to get injured all the time with that philosophy, and **knock on wood** I'm having my strongest training cycle of my life currently. So I think I'll keep up this new approach.