Tip 8 Holidays and Recovery

So who has already been on holiday?

And who is about to go on holiday?

And do you run when you are on holiday?

This is a big question for people training for Ealing Half because the middle four weeks of a 12 week training plan are in August when many people are affected by school holidays.

In her blog, Eagles coach Rachel Job gives some tips on how to run on holiday (and still enjoy your holiday!)

Rachel’s #3 is “Be Realistic”

If you’ve got a two-week beach holiday in a hot location or an action-packed sight-seeing jaunt, are you really going to have time to fit in [insert list of all sessions for those two weeks]? Maybe this is an opportunity to factor a cut-back week (or two) and use it as an opportunity to rest and recover. You might find that you’re doing plenty more walking than you would normally do at home, which is great ‘time on your feet’ training.

And a cut-back week (or two) - as opposed to simply taking a rest day between runs - is good for you. The theory behind this is that we get fitter when we allow our bodies to recover / rest and the training we do is simply to stress the body so that it has to recover and heal stronger. The problem with giving the body a lot of stress by a lot of training is that most people won't know until afterwards when a lot of stress becomes too much stress and leads to injury.

Eagles who are not on holiday will find that the training plan included a cut-back week for the w/c 24 July with another one coming up w/c 21 August. If you are taking holiday at some other time, it makes sense to adjust your training plan so that the week(s) you are on holiday count as your cut-back week(s).