do you take a day completely off each week? im a high school girl and i always have, but i really want to get better/hit 35 mpw so i was wondering if i should stop this. i’ve had some injury issues, would running everyday make me injured? or would it help me? obviously on a day that is usually rest (today) i’d go super easy. would that still be stressful?
You probably should.
I am a huge fan of rest days. It's good mentally and also good for your body to recover.
It's also good to have a month where you take it easy with running.
See it this way: If you don't take rest days your body will do it for you, that's called an injury.
At the very least I'll cycle for a hour and jog for 30 minutes. Complete days off aren't necessarily, especially for the amount of hours per week most runners are training.
I think running every day is optimal but ultimately you have to experiment to find what's right for you.
Would do one every week as a freshman, and I’d do one fewer per month each year (so 1 as a senior). On occasion I’d also take an unplanned rest day if I were fried after a big race
Absolutely. Running 7 days a week every week is not healthy.
If your easy runs are truly easy you can function without an off day, if ur 7th run is an easy jog it counts as a recovery day.
6 days a week with 2 doubles gives you 8 runs a week.
I would recommend this over 7 days all singles with no off days.
M- 7 miles
Tuesday- AM 3 easy, pm 4 fartlek
Wednesday-5 miles with hills. Strength training optional
Thursday-Am- 2 easy - PM- interval workout 4 miles total
Friday- 4 easy plus strides
Saturday- Race(s) plus long cool down-6 miles total.
Sunday- No running. Strength training optional
I think it depends on the athlete. How old, experienced, and durable they are. As a HS runner, you should absolutely be taking a rest day each week.
Once you get to college just trust your coach. If they say rest day, you take a rest day. If they say run 7 days a week, you run 7 days a week. But that's not for a while anyways.
I am not a coach, but my general rule of thumb is if I'm running less than 60 mpw there is no reason to run 7 days per week.
as a fellow high school girl with similar mileage goals, i typically do a full off day every 10 days or so in peak XC season. sometimes i got too caught up in workouts and races and long runs and would occasionally go for over 14 days without a rest day but i would recommend making sure to schedule them in esp with your potential injury issues.
When I was in college I took one day off a week. It wasn't always the same day but usually it was Sunday as that was the day after one of our meets.
As I'm not a competitive runner at all anymore I take more rest days than I do actual running days.
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