Think of a rest day as a “No Running Day”.
Determining how frequent you need to take rest days, will depend on your experience, ambitions and level of fitness. You need to learn how to be honest with yourself and how your body feels. Too few rest days may lead to overtraining, burn-out or injury and too many rest days will lead to very little, or no improvement in your fitness and ultimately missing out on reaching your goals.
Full time professional athletes will generally take very few rest days, but most marathon runners will run at least 4 times per week which allows up to 3 rest days each week. If you have a busy work and family life, you may need those rest days to recover properly, BUT if you have time and the energy it can be very beneficial to do some form exercise other than running. This type of training is referred to as “active recovery”.
A walk, cycle, swim or light gym session is a great way to add training hours without any impact on your body.
Remember this:
Rest days are not a sign of weakness. In fact, it takes a strong individual to know when to rest and when to work hard. Rest days are an important part of the recovery process and without sufficient recovery, your body can’t function to its optimum abilities.
Going for a sports massage is always a good idea, and a rest day would be an ideal time to fit this in. Plan ahead – avoid a hard massage if you have a workout planned for the next day.
Its normal for your legs to feel a bit sluggish after a day off running, so don’t be alarmed if you don’t feel fresh in the first few kilometres following a rest day. The feeling usually disappears as soon as your muscles have warmed up!!