Unless you are a professional runner, you're going to need to be flexible with your training plan. Ideally, you will have two easy running days between "workouts" such as tempos, fartleks, speed, and more challenging long runs. But that's not always possible. Sometimes you have to juggle your schedule around. In these instances, you cannot always schedule two easy days between hard workouts. What to do? The answer is NOT workout, easy day, workout. There are TWO BETTER OPTIONS that I discuss here based on my years of being coached and trial and error.

Transcript

Hello runners hope all is well. Today I want to talk about scheduling workouts. And this is advice that I have picked up over the years from my coaches from teammates from reading books that I have found very helpful.

When you are in a workout program, you have typically a prescribed number of days and you have runs assigned for each of those dates. And ideally, when you have a workout a hard effort, you're going to get at least two days of rest between one hard workout and the next hour workout. But it doesn't always work out that way. You know, unless you're pro athletes, sometimes most of the time, you have to be flexible with your training plan, where you need to actually move days around. And it's not always possible to put two easy days between two hard workouts.

So when that happens, you have to get creative. And it's the only way you're going to make it through a training plan as a normal person that is running a business, working a job raising a family, whatever it is, you just got to be flexible. So I want to give you two things to think about.

If you can't put two easy days between two hard workouts, which is ideal to give your body to recover. Here are two variations you can try.

The first one is what you shouldn't do is do a hard workout, easy day hard workout. Because most of the time you're going to start feeling that soreness from the first workout Two days later, you may have noticed that and that's why two days are kind of the nice magic number. So the worst thing you can do more, one of the worst things you can do is to do a hard workout. Easy hard workout. It may seem like it but it's not. You are better off doing this. If you can't put two easy days between two hard workouts you are better off doing a hard workout. And then the next day doing another hard workout putting too hard workouts back to back. The reason is, is because your body isn't yet fully feeling the fatigue from the first workout. And so you can still get a good quality effort in back to back. That's the simple reason. Sometimes it's beneficial because you're mixing things up, you're challenging your body, you're giving it a new stimulus, you're making your work a little bit harder. And so oftentimes, it's actually a good idea to do that. So if you can't put two easy days between two hard workouts, the first thing you should think about doing is saying Okay, let me instead do two hard workouts back to back. That's option one.

If that doesn't work for you, and you feel like you have to put a day in between hard workouts for whatever reason, don't run easy, take the day off. That's your next best option. Take your day off, do hard workout day off hard workout, that's option B. I think option A back to back hard workouts is your better option. Not all the time, but as many times as but but that should be your preferred option. And then option B if that doesn't work for whatever reason.

So at the end of the day, when you earn a train plan, if you're like most of us out there, which are just normal, everyday middle of the pack, back of the pack runners, you're gonna have to be flexible to get through your program. We're not pros, we got to be flexible. And where you get into trouble oftentimes is when you start moving your schedule around your face with this period of how do you schedule your workout days you're not easy running days.

Ideally you're going to put two days of rest in between them two days easy running between them. If you can't do that, I want you to consider option A which is trying to run two hard workouts back to back