Exhilirated, not Exhausted

“Stress, Recover, Improve… that’s all training is. Any damn fool can do it.” – can be heard echoing through the halls of Oregon from famed coach and Nike founder Bill Bowerman. He would say it verbatim to all incoming freshman every year, and he meant it, especially the “recovery” part.

In the 50’s when the standard for improving was pushing till you puke everyday Bowerman would insist on days off for recovery, and if his overzealous students would try to sneak in an extra workout, the consequence was simple: off the Team. While many did not agree with Coach Bowerman’s theories… 4 NCAA titles and 16 sub 4 min. milers later… turns out ole Bill was right.

Your fitness doesn't increase while you run, but during the recovery process that unfolds between runs. The stress of running flips a number of hormonal and genetic switches in various parts of your body, allowing each part to adapt in a way that renders it better prepared for the next workout. But these adaptations can unfold only when your body is at rest. Since the majority of fitness adaptations occur through recovery, the goal of your training program should be to maximize recovery. In other words, instead of recovering to train, as many runners do, you should train to recover.

While we are not here to win a gold medal, an NCAA title or run professionally, taking a day or two off for recovery will only help us in our long term fitness and goal setting. While most of us run to enhance our lives, and we want to finish and feel exhilarated and not exhausted, taking a day off for recovery will be one of the easier things for us to do.