Recovery Run: How important is it?

As an amateur runners, recovery run consisted 2-3 days in a week training schedule. It occurs before or after hard training of the week, such as tempo run, intervals and long run. For example, a schedule might call for a recovery run on Sat, a long run on Sunday, followed by recovery run on Monday, or substitute with a cross training/rest day.

When I began to follow schedule for training, recovery run was the part that I unable to comprehend. How fast should I run? What should be the correct pace? How long the distance should be? Well there were lots of information from Google, but I still couldn't fully understand the concept.

I guess the questions for beginners are like mine,
1) aren't we should try as hard as possible in a training? By runner slow, how does this help?
2) I feel guilty for a relax training.
3) This shouldn't be my pace, I can run faster! What if my friend saw me running this way?
4) I'm not tired, is this correct?

I guess running recovery run too fast is a mistake that we runners commonly did. Runners have the characteristic to test "how fast I can go today" whenever they step on the road. It's quiet a disappointment when a slow-than-usual pace was recorded in running watch and was published to the training log or social network website. However, feel better when label the activity as "Recovery".

We can pretty much get rid of this psychology constraint and ease with the running pace if we look at the role of recovery run in a week schedule.

The important trainings in a week are hard days, such as tempo run, interval run and long run. These trainings provide intensity and stimulus to runners' body system. Each training provides stimulus to different system. These are the elements that improve endurance, speed and overall performance. Runners should be in good condition to undergo these (hard) trainings. In another words, runners should prepare their body at the best condition to perform all the Tempo and Yassos.

Study the schedule in-dept runners one will see the idea. Recovery runs beautifully separate out hard days in a week. These day the days should be took advantages of to let body to recover for the next day (hard) training.

Recovery run also means to let the body repair itself, and with the accumulation of time, improve total body performance. It improves the blood flow to the muscle, thus
1) take away the waste product
2) introduce more blood
3) thus more oxygen
4) thus nutrient
5) thus promote tissue repair

What pace to run is a good question. A good way is to use a heart rate monitor, and keep your maximum heart rate below 76 percent (Pete Pfitzinger, 2009). Not all of us have the luxury to own a HR monitor, as a guide one can run at a pace of 1:15/km (2:00/mile) slower than 15-k to half marathon pace (Pete Pfitzinger, 2009). For runners who still in process develop their own pace, the more general guide would be the body will still feel fresh at the end of run, and you won't feel too tired during the next day training.

Some other useful tips on recovery run:
1) Running on soft surface such as track, grasses, trails
2) Avoid hill run (it means both up and down hills)
3) Avoid purposely putting pressure to your step, just relax

Pfitzinger and Douglas wrote, "Just as it takes discipline to push through a tempo run when you feel bad, so does it take discipline to train easily when you feel good on a planned recovery day."

I do hope by the end of this article, you will feel more relax and enjoy recovery day, and even proud of it because you did it appropriately.