General Tightness : Time For A Rest Day?

[Jeffrey Lindy]

The day before yesterday, I had an easy 7 mile run that turned miserable. I was very tight, in several places. My left hip was tight and twingey, my knees were tight and uncomfortable, and the muscles in my lower legs were tight as guitar strings (not my calves, so I suppose it's just the tibia flexors).

I took an unscheduled rest day yesterday, and am running a reasonably hard track workout tonight (0.5 miles in 2:35, lap and a half jog, 0.25 miles in 1:14, lap and a half jog, 0.125 miles in 0:35). The lead up to the tightness was three really fun, fast, enjoyable workouts: 9.4 miles at 6:44/mile pace, 5 miles at 6:10/mile pace, and then a track workout of quarters and 100m dashes (five of each).

Was the tightness due to three relatively fast days in a row? Just a random thing? I was only tight, and didn't feel at all cardiovascularly tired... I was somewhat looser in the last two miles and could run 6:30 pace or faster with no problems, no panting or anything.

[Jon Allen]

I think your observation is correct- I'm guessing the 3 fast days in a row was too much.  For a 3 hour marathoner, 6:44 pace is too fast for an easy run (Sat), and your other two days were faster than that.  Take a few days easy (i.e. 7:30 or slower pace) and see how you feel.  If you need some off days, too, that is better than getting injured.

On a related note, you may want to look into fewer but longer speed days.  See this post on Big Workouts for some ideas http://fastrunningblog.com/forum/index.php/topic,1076.0.html
BW seem to result in the best marathon times for FRB-ers who do them.

[Jeffrey Lindy]

Thanks for the advice.

At the moment, I'm training for a mile time trial in late September, as a fun diversion after a trail ultra in June. The low volume (about 30-35 miles a week) might be leaving me feeling too frisky and too apt to run overly fast on what should've been easy days. My mistake.

[Jeffrey Lindy]

Seems like it's all better. Took another off day on Friday, then a really easy pace on my Sunday recovery run after Saturday sprints.

I was a little worried because of the hip tightness especially, as I've never ever had any issue with that joint before.

[David S]

Jon,

Tinman has an example of a BW plan on his website www.therunzone.com in the article entitled Rules for Multiples (one can now only see these articles if one logs in) that shows 1 BW during the week and using the long run as the other BW.  The example shows MON - 4-5 miles slow, TUE - 8-10 miles with 6 x 30 seconds at 5k pace with 90 seconds rest in between, WED - 16 miles with 6 x 3 minutes at 5-10k pace jog 2 minutes in between, THUR - 4-5 miles slow, FRI - 8-10 miles with 8 x 20 seconds at 3k pace jog 40 seconds in between, SAT - 16-17 miles alternating 1 easy mile and 1 MGP mile, SUN - 4-5 miles slow.  The following week is very similar except the WED BW run is 12 miles with 6 x 1 miles @ Half Marathon Pace with 1 min jog in between, and SAT 20 miles with 5 cycles of 4 miles easy and 1 mile at MGP. 

This seems more reasonable than 2 BWs per week and a long run - I don't think my body could handle the examples that Paul posted in the entry that you reference above.  I did notice Tinman's other article entitled Marathon Training has various BW examples for elite runners, club runners, etc.  Obviously BW's should be customized to a runner's current ability and fitness.  I do like the idea of running MGP miles during the long run.

Here is his explanation for the above schedule:  (Hopefully I won't get in trouble for posting!)

"Jessica is a 37 minute 10k runner who decides to train for a marathon race. Since she lives in Dayton, Ohio, and she decides to run the Columbus Marathon in four months. She’s been running 60 miles per week and racing 10ks during the last few months. At first, she plans to run 80-100 miles per week in preparation for the marathon. After asking for my consultation via email, she changes her mind about her weekly mileage. I tell her that 60-70 miles per week is appropriate for her ability and background. Further, I tell her that doing Big Workouts (longer runs with faster portions included) is the best way to prepare for marathons. She asks me to coach her – and the journey begins.
Below is an chart showing Jessica’s first month of scheduled workouts."  Tinman   

The example that I posted in the first paragraph is from the chart.

[Jon Allen]

David- agreed.  I very rarely could do 2 BW plus a good long run in a week.  Usually I could do 2 BW with 2 rest days in between, or 1 BW and 1 long run (sometimes with a bit of faster stuff during the long run).  You have to be pretty resilient and probably young to handle 2 BW and a long run every week!