It’s the end of the season. You have done all your important races, and it’s taking a while before your next big one. What to do now? Should you continue training to stay fit? Should you completely stop running for a while? What about all the strength, speed and endurance that you will lose, after having spent a whole year working hard to get where you are right now?
When it comes to resting, there is a lot we can learn from elite runners. Almost without exception, they all switch off for some time. They take a proper break, during which they hardly train at all. Apart from that, they can teach us some other things you can do to recover well from a long season and optimally prepare yourself for the next season.
So here are my 7 end of season tips for runners.
1. Plan a rest period.
The first step is to actually plan the end of the season. Make sure you plan a period of 2 months (or thereabout) without any race. If you keep on racing, you will be forced to keep on training as well. Having two months without a race, means you allow yourself to have that rest period.
For marathon runners, this is quite simple: the resting period comes directly after a marathon. Right now, most of you who have run Chicago, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, New York or any other marathon, have had a resting period.
But as a 5K, 10K or half marathon runner, it’s also good to plan a last race, after which you take a well-deserved break.
I noticed that many amateur runners are afraid to stop training – no, not all of them, but it’s a lot more common than among elite athletes. Some of them may be scared to lose fitness, while others are just so used to that weekly rhythm of training sessions, that they can’t do without it. Running has become a habit that they don’t want to quit.
If you are purely running for health and happiness, then it’s fine to continue training. In that case, you can probably stop reading this article. But if you run, at least partly, to improve yourself, please continue reading.
Because if you run to get better and stronger, taking a break is a must. As my friend, multiple world champion and world record holder Lornah Kiplagat used to say: “Sometimes you go up, sometimes you go down”. In other words, you can’t try to be on top of your game non-stop. Our body and mind need a break, in order to recharge. Without that break, you will never be at your best.
The necessity of the break is more mental than physical. Many runners feel physically recovered after a few days, or a week. But mentally they are not yet ready to get back into it. It’s important to accept this. Don’t force yourself to start training hard, when you don’t feel like. Because if you force yourself, you will pay the price later in the season.
Being a serious runner, requires a certain level of focus. You think about your sleep, what you eat and what you drink. Your way of life may impact your family life, or the time you have for friends. You also dig deep during hard workouts. All of this requires mental effort. And mental effort can and will be finished at some point. And if the battery is half empty, you can’t perform at your best. This is why you need to recharge. Elites realise this, which is why they value taking some time off.
You might say: but I’m not training as hard as an elite runner, and I’m not as focused. True, but probably your mental strength is also not at their level. Your mental battery empties quicker. So the need to recharge is there for all of us.
2. Stop running
First of all; stop running for some time – or at least greatly reduce your mileage. When I was a younger runner (15 – 21 years), I would take two to three weeks completely off from running. No running at all. When I was a (semi)professional runner of 24-37 years, I would take one week completely off, followed by a week with just three runs. Three runs meant covering around 30km, while my regular mileage was 150 – 200km per week.
Yes, you do lose some fitness during those weeks, but that is fine. If you try to stay on top of your game all the time, you will never be on top of your game. Accept that you will be less fit for some weeks. And then work your way back up. You will be surprised how quickly you are back in shape. And keep in mind that you want to be in top shape when it matters most. That is not two weeks after a marathon, or during a local 5km fun run 6 weeks after the marathon. It’s during your next big race.
When I was an elite runner, we had a saying that ‘the first pancakes are for the children’. It meant that the races that were early in the season, even if they were national level races, were often won by someone who was not such a high level runner. Later in the season, the ‘adults’ would get stronger and win the bigger prices. They would come and claim their ‘pancakes’.
Between 2015 and 2020 I was the head coach of the national athletics academy in India. At the end of the season, I wanted to give my runners a break, but they were still expected to stay/live in the training complex. So what I did: I let them do some other sports. They joined a judo class, some badminton, some volleyball, and so on. They had two weeks with very little running, a lot of fun, and used their body in a way they normally never did. I felt like it was effective, both from a physical and mental point of view.
3. Enjoy the other things in life
This is as important as reducing the training load. Make sure you enjoy life in the way you
don’t do as a runner. This is not to say that we don’t enjoy the life of a runner. But we deny ourselves certain things. Now is the right moment to spend time on those things that we deny ourselves.
This doesn’t mean that you should start drinking and smoking if you don’t like this. But if you enjoy going out, now is the time. Maybe you always wanted to go to a concert of a famous singer. Or watch a match of your favorite football team.
I remember being in line at the post office for a Michael Jackson concert. I spent the whole night in front of the post office, wrapped up in a sleeping bag, with some other Michael Jackson fans, to make sure we had tickets. I could do that because I was in my resting period.
You may want to spend more time with friends, or family. Many people like to travel, or make long hikes, or climb a mountain. Think about some things you enjoy, and do them during your rest period.
4. Evaluate the previous season
The end of the season is also the perfect time for an evaluation. This is something you can do by yourself, or with your coach.
Ask yourself questions, such as: what are the things I did well this season? Where did I improve? What are the things I am not happy with? How can I make sure I do them better next time? What needs to be done, so that I get faster? Is there something I should change about my training? Is there something I should change about my life, to have better recovery and better training sessions? Am I able to race as well as I think I can, based on my training? If not, which mental tools can I use to race better?
The best is to write this down in a training log book, so that you can look back at what you wrote.
5. Set goals for next season
The end of the resting period, is also a good moment to set goals for next season. Ask yourself: when and where do I want to perform? Set two or three A races: the most important races of the year. These are races for which you will do a proper taper of 1-2 weeks.
Then think about a couple of B races; races for which you may reduce the training load in the last 4-5 days, but that are not super important. If you don’t want to decide on this yet, it’s also fine. You can set your B races later, as long as you keep in mind that they are meant to make you perform better in the A races.
Setting goals is not only about races. It can also be about training, or about daily life. It can be anything that can help you perform better.
Just a few examples of life and training goals:
Training goal: increase mileage from 70 to 90km per week within the next 4 months.
To be able do that, I have to recover and sleep well. Goal: sleep at least 8.5 hours per night, which means going to bed at 10 pm.
Life goal: switch off phone after 9 pm, so that I get in a relaxed more for sleeping
Training goal: keep the easy runs easy. Don’t accelerate to a faster pace when I feel good, but keep it easy, and safe that energy for the harder workouts.
Life goal: eat regular lunch, between 12.00 – 13.00 and include at least 2 pieces of fruit.
Training goal: improve core strength by doing 3 weekly sessions (10 min each) of core exercises.
Life goal: take breaks during work. Try to have a 5 min break every hour, during which I drink something.
Training goal: do one session of meditation (progressive muscle relaxation) per week.
These are just some examples of goals that can help you maximize your performance.
6. Start building up gradually
No, the 10% rule does not count here (I’m not sure it counts anywhere), but you do want to build up in a gradual way. That means: don’t take two weeks off and then go back to training as hard as you did. Start gradually, with a bit less mileage than usual, and especially some less demanding workouts.
I know some coaches prescribe this, but I don’t believe in doing 2-3 months of only easy running. For me, that gets too boring, and I don’t see the point of it. After resting for 2-3 weeks, you can go back to training, and that includes doing workouts. But you don’t have to start doing 10 x 1km immediately. You can start with a light 20 min fartlek, or some hill reps, or a progressive run. Just some relatively light workouts, that give you a good stimulus, without being mentally very demanding.
Mileage wise, you can take 3-6 weeks building up to the mileage that you are used to.
The gradual building up is a way to allow your body to adjust to the training load, and at the same time it gives you a bit of an extended rest period, where you are not ‘all in’ yet. This ensures you have enough energy later on in the season.
7. First focus on non-specific stuff
I normally like working from non-specific to specific. This means doing lots of non-specific training sessions when you are far from your goal race. For marathon runners that come out of their rest period this means, that we pay attention to:
strength / gym
hill sessions
strides
some short (not so heavy) intervals at 1500 – 5000m pace
harder sessions at 10km pace up to threshold
easy running / easy longruns
For 5-10km runners it means we pay attention to:
strength / gym
hill sessions
strides or sprints
some 200m reps at 1500m pace
more focus on tempo (marathon effort up to lactate threshold)
longruns with some quality in it
The closer we come to the important race(s), the more specific the training gets. In another post I will tell you more about this.
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