I have a question about merging the last 6 weeks of a beginner 1/2 marathon program and the first 6 weeks of a 20-week 70.3 program. My thoughts are to keep the running program in tact and overlay the swimming and biking from the triathlon program on top. Everything seems to fit fine except that I will not have any of the rest days called for from either plan.
Questions:
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Do I need a rest day or can I pretend that my swim only days are rest days?
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Is there anything glaring that I should not be doing or suggestions to make this work better?
A little about me:
This is my 2nd year doing triathlons but will be my first ½ marathon and 70.3. I am a slow runner and targeting a little under 2 hours for the half marathon. My “A” race is the 70.3 but I am really just using this season as a prep for IMOO next year. In addition to the 70.3 and ½ marathon I will be doing lots of sprints, a couple of olys, and a marathon to finish the fall.
You don’t need a rest day.
An easy workout can promote recovery w.o undue stress on your body… might be a really easy spin, or a swim — if you are training hard enough to “need” a rest day, you are training too much/too hard in the first place, cut it back so you can train 7 days of the week. Likely you can dial down the intensity a bit and be fine…
Thanks for the responses. Right now my “rest” days have only low intensity swims.
Based on personal experience, IMHO everyone needs at least one rest day per week. I’m an ex swimmer and I used to think that instead of taking a rest day I could easily get away with swimming an easy 1500-2000 meters on my “rest day” instead of taking that day fully off. I figured that with my swim background it wouldn’t affect my recovery all that much.
But I found out that I was completely wrong. All I did was get tired and now I actually swim less than I used to, but each swim session is more intense. Quality instead of quantity, for all three disciplines, is the way to go.
STer Post 1: **You need a rest day. **
STer Post 2: **You don’t need a rest day. **
Classic Slowtwitch.
What is the latest thinking on this stuff? Last I heard, people down the pack from the pointy end were better served with a day off rather than an active recovery day, appropriate training efforts included. Any new thoughts?
I would agree that often times an “active recov.” day is all you really need, sometimes I find it is even better than doing nothing at all…however, I feel the benefits of a day off can pay dividends mentally, especially during larger volume blocks.
Rest days depend on a lot of variables, some of which are likely based your DNA, others that are based on your age and the day to day stress you experience in your life and what altitude you live at, and so forth. I usually take one day week off and have one day week that is swim only. I find the rest helps me. A guy down the street from me, who is a great athlete and a pretty good triathlete is a big fan of 3-5 hard days in a row followed by 3 or 4 pretty easy/off days. I’m sure there are other people who thrive on 7 ball busting days a week, week after week.
On this subject I would err on the side of conservancy…If you are doing the proper work rest days won’t hurt you, you just might not reach your potential quite as fast.
I have decided to arrange the schedule to have a rest day the day after my long run and a light swim day for active recovery following my long bike. The run training is the most important for me right now so everything else is just falling in place.
Thanks for all the comments and ideas everyone.
STer Post 1: **You need a rest day. **
STer Post 2: **You don’t need a rest day. **
Classic Slowtwitch.
What is the latest thinking on this stuff? Last I heard, people down the pack from the pointy end were better served with a day off rather than an active recovery day, appropriate training efforts included. Any new thoughts?
there is no one answer for everyone.
it depends on the individual’s ability to recover, overall level of stress in their life (work/family/etc.), amt of sleep, current training volume, where they are in the training cycle, their overall athletic history, etc. etc.
simply, it depends.
For me, with a full schedule of other life commitments, I end up with about 1 day completely off every 2 weeks or thereabouts. I schedule 7 days of workouts (or my coach does), but inevitably something will get moved around, swapped or missed altogether. I tend to bounce back pretty well from hard efforts, so in an perfect world my off day would either be an easy swim or a short (30 min) run. A full day off is typically only required if I am in a big mileage mode.
FWIW, I took a quick look at my training log and I have 7 complete days off so far this year…with 4 in the last two weeks due to crazy work commitments. I took 2 days off in jan and 1 in Feb…that’s on an average of 10-12 hrs per week.