Brooklyn Half Marathoners,
It’s time for a recovery week!
This week you’ll run fewer miles, a shorter Long Run, and a shorter Speed Run. Between runs you’ll prioritize rest, good food, laughter with loved ones, and peaceful moments wherever you can find them. By backing off the mileage you’ll give your body the space to direct its resources to healing, and in giving your body extra rest, fuel, and “happy” parasympathetic hormones, you’ll communicate clearly to your body that now is a safe time to heal and grow.
We also have a new round of athletes starting fresh this week! Welcome! Step right in! Here’s what you’re not going to do: you’re not going to try to “catch up” on miles, you’re not going to stress that you’re “behind,” and you’re not going to reorder your life to look like a wellness influencer’s. You’re just going to start.
For the runners just starting out: your first week of training aligns perfectly with the recovery week of those who’ve been with us the past three weeks. Follow the below plan as-is. Your mileage build in these next couple weeks will be a little more intense, but still safe. You may look ahead in the Coach + Coffey Half Marathon Plan to see what’s ahead, and every week we’ll offer advice on how to decide on mileage within the given range.
Many Half Marathon training plans are 9 weeks long, so if you’re just getting started, or if you feel like you haven’t quite nailed the first few weeks, you’re fiiiiine. The first 3 weeks are wiggle room—time to make mistakes, misgauge time, run the wrong pace, and generally let yourself be messy and confused (or not there at all!)
NOW is the time to lock in! Look forward with clear eyes to your next 9 weeks. Are you ready? Block the time in the calendar. Make run dates with friends. Plan which crews and clubs you’ll attend. Figure out how the runs will happen around travel. You’re not aiming for perfection, you’re aiming for 80%. Got it? Let’s go.
BUT FIRST….we recover.
This week you will take a 20% dip in total mileage from last week. You may do this either by shortening your runs or by cutting out one run. If that’s confusing or if you haven’t yet settled into consistent mileage, take a look at the mileage models on pages 7-9 of the Coach + Coffey Half Marathon Program.
In a recovery week, our goal is to decrease training load just enough to redirect extra resources toward healing cellular damage, while continuing to stimulate new adaptation. Rest a little, but not too much. Half Marathon fitness is built on compiled fatigue, so we want to keep compiling while giving our bodies a little extra time and energy to get ahead of healing and building. Make sense? It’s a fine line, and in the future as the miles pile up these “down weeks” will feel more significant.
In a recovery week you should also focus on giving your body everything it needs to recover well. A little more rest, more good fuel, and a little more care and softness will give your body a message: it’s safe to direct more resources toward healing and rebuilding.
How, specifically, should you do this? I’m glad you asked:
Take sleep seriously. Every space age recovery technique put together is still not as powerful as a good night of sleep. Sleep is your body’s most focused recovery period. Don’t let a few bad nights stress you out though! A long trend of good nights is what’s important.
Fuel the repairs. After a run, your body is full of little bits of cellular damage. That’s a good thing! It prompts your body to use the materials of your last meal to repair your broken bits to better than new. This week, double down on supplying that high-quality building material. No need to be precise here unless you like. Just get in good protein, carbs, fat, fiber, fruits + veggies and a colorful plate. If this is overwhelming, consider making an appointment with a nutritionist. We love Tara Mardigan, aka The Plate Coach.
Chill out. Note that this is different from active recovery methods. I know it can feel more productive to hop from foam roller to a massage to cryofreeze, but your body needs passive time to heal. Being still, relaxed and peaceful will switch you over to a parasympathetic (ie “rest and digest”) state, which is where all your most significant healing happens.
SLOW DOWN your easy runs. This week especially, hold yourself back on your non-speed days. Start at a bouncy little run/walk and let your body “fall” into the run without forcing it. Turn your watch face around so it’s harder to check, and just let your body pick the pace. This is a great chance to go out for a few miles with a run-curious friend!
Move your run to soft surface. If you have access to dirt, grass, or a rubber track, run there to alleviate a portion of the pounding. This will make an especially big difference in the feet and lower legs.
Trade in a run for a cross-training session. Running can be more demanding than non-weight bearing sports because of the impact of your footsteps. If you’re feeling overtired, opt for a bike, swim, row, or elliptical session.
Move the run to a treadmill. If the winter runs are wearing you out, move a run indoors if you have access.
Schedule a massage and/or PT session. This is a great week to splurge on a little self-care. Massage brings increased blood flow to healing muscles and gets rid of adhesions that may be slowing down the process. PT, even if you’re not experiencing pain, can help correct imbalances in your running form that can lead to more efficient, easier miles. We love Recovery Mode in NYC!
Take a run off. If you’re in an energy hole and need to stay in bed, do it. This is an entirely normal part of training. Even for Olympians, it’s a rare training cycle that doesn’t include an unplanned rest day or two. Taking one is a sign that you’re a mature athlete who respects your body.
Engage in Yoga, Thai Chi, or another movement therapy. Think of this as an internal massage. You’re moving slowly and deliberately, sliding overlapping muscles past each other, and exploring your joints full range of motion. This isn’t for getting traditionally stronger, it’s tuning yourself like a violin.
Use elevation, compression boots, or compression socks to decrease inflammation. First, let’s get straight that inflammation isn’t a bad thing. Inflammation is just more blood carrying more healing, which is a natural response to training, and the only way to improve. If, however, you’re feeling dead-legged and stale, it may feel good to clear out old inflammation that feels “stuck” in your legs. Do this by elevating your legs on a pillow or against a wall for 15:00, wearing compression boots or compression socks after a run, or running with compression socks. There’s no best choice here, it’s just whatever anti-inflammation method feels best to you. We do suggest saving ice for warmer weather, or acute inflammation.
Laugh with your friends. This really can’t be overstated. When you hang out with people who make your shoulders drop, you “turn on” your parasympathetic nervous system, which moves you over from “perform” mode into “recover” mode. Even better, when you’re bantering with people after practice, you release “social” hormones, which supercharge the process.
Be warned: Many people feel quite sluggish during recovery weeks. If this is you, that’s great! That means your body is doing exactly what you’ve asked: it’s still working just as hard, only the work is microscopic and it’s happening while you’re at rest. This may feel like lethargy, achiness, or crankiness. You may be very hungry or thirsty. The answer: feed + water + rest + trust your genius animal body. Thank it for being such a sophisticated and perceptive partner (that often knows things you don’t!) If this week feels extra hard, know that next week you’ll feel the recovery boost!
LFG
Coach + Coffey
This week you will run 3-6 times, with 1-2 Speed Run(s) + 1 Long Run
These runs may be done on any days, with two caveats: 1) The Speed Run must be run earlier in the week than the Long Run, and 2) follow the hard-easy-hard principle, which means never run back-to-back hard days. Instead, separate hard (speed or long) runs with at least one easy run or rest day.
This week you’ll take a 20% step back in mileage! Look to the charts on page 7-9 of the Coach + Coffey Half Marathon Plan for help deciding exactly how much to run.
Speed Run: 20 minute Speedplay – 10 x (1:00 “on,” 1:00 “off”)
Method:
Run 5-20 minutes of easy warmup running.
Do 5-10 optional minutes of dynamic warmups + strides.
Run 10 x (1:00 on, 1:00 off) for a total of 20:00
This workout is a “speedplay,” also known as a “fartlek,” which means speedplay in Swedish. The workout was developed in the 1930s by Swedish Olympic Coach Gösta Holmér as a way of training agility and athleticism into pace work.
Rather than the start/stop of typical interval workouts, the speedplay moves between faster/slower paces. There are no stops. No sprints. No extremes. It’s just one unbroken run, moving back and forth between faster and slower minutes like waves.
This workout includes 2 paces: the pace of the “on” intervals and the pace of the “off” intervals.
If you’re comfortable running strictly on feel please do that! No paces, no thinking—just let the body pick the pace, and adjust on the go if you realize that you started too fast or too slow. Tuning into the body here at the start is a great way of introducing speed work.
If that degree of freedom feels overwhelming, think about doing the “on” minutes around 5k effort and the “off” minutes around the slower end of aerobic run pace—available on page 6 of the Coach + Coffey Half Marathon Program. BUT, once you get the hang of your paces, I encourage you to hide your time and just run hard, then easy, then hard. By releasing yourself from the constraint of pace, you’ll strengthen your relationship with your body. In the end, you’ll be faster and fitter for it!
5-20 minutes easy cooldown running + dynamic cooldown, just like at the start.
Aerobic Runs — 1-4 runs @ 3-9 miles
Find your aerobic pace on page 6 in Coach + Coffey Half Marathon Program. This wide pace range is determined by your prospective Half Marathon pace, and is the pace at which your system is fueled almost exclusively by aerobic metabolism. That means at this pace your energy comes from an oxygen-based system; any faster and it start to rely on chemical reactions within your muscles, which produce byproducts that are measured by lactate. The majority of your training miles should be run in this aerobic, oxygen-powered pace window. This will develop your body's reliance on oxygen-based metabolism, build out the capillary “infrastructure” for delivering oxygen-rich blood, and coax your body away from the production of leg-burning muscular byproduct.
Put a different way, at this pace your body can both recover from your hard runs and develop your endurance at the same time. Some people refer to these days as recovery runs or easy runs. We like to use the technical term: aerobic—adj, relating to, involving, or requiring free oxygen, to keep at the front of our minds that even though these miles are easy, they are just as purposeful and essential as any speed day.
Optional Tempo — n/a
Experienced runners running at least five days a week may opt for a second speed workout to complement the week's primary workout. This will typically be a Tempo/Threshold-based workout. However, this week…
No secondary workout this week! Instead, swap out Tempo for another Aerobic Run.
Long Run — 4-10 miles @ Aerobic “base pace” and the last 3 miles at Half Marathon Goal Pace*
Time for something new! You’re running shorter this week, but we’re sneaking in a new challenge. You’ll begin this run at your typical easy aerobic pace, but with 3 miles to go you’ll put your foot on the gas.
This will be your first time this season running a committed segment at Goal Race Pace. It’s likely you’re not even sure what that pace is! So, what should you do?
First, go to pace 6 of the Coach + Coffey Half Marathon Plan. Make a very broad guess at your Half Marathon Goal Pace. You can likely zero in to 2-3 lines in chart. Spend some time with those numbers. Think about them. Don’t make a rigid commitment yet, just absorb the range of possibilities.
Start your run at a very easy pace. With three miles to go, simply accelerate. Don’t think too hard about the pace. Just find a smooth, strong effort—faster than Aerobic Pace, but not a strain. After a few minutes, speed up a little more and see how that feels. Maybe you’ll stay there, or maybe you’ll slow down. It’s all an experiment. Make these three miles an information-collecting session. Try on paces. Make a note of your effort. Don’t get too attached to how each pace feels, because you’ll gain so much fitness over the next 9 weeks.
When you switch gears, it may feel jarring, too fast, or even a little scary. That doesn’t mean the pace is wrong. It’s just a new stimulus, and bodies often have a hard time with change. Be patient, stay calm if your head or your body throws a little tantrum. In just a few weeks, when we come back to this stimulus, it will no longer be new. You’ll feel more capable, more aware of your “home” paces, and more comfortable at every pace. For now, all you have to do is try.
*If this is your first week of training, run 5-10 miles entirely at Aerobic Pace. That means you’ll skip the Race Pace work, but your lower-end mileage is one mile higher. This is almost exactly what the rest of the team did their first week of training.