Improved athletic performance = stress + rest
Bill Bowerman was one of the original American coaches to push the hard/easy principal in athletes. He did an interesting experiment on his runners by testing how many hard workouts his runners could complete on pace in consecutive days. Very few were able to maintain high intensity workouts for more than 2 or 3 days before their bodies broke down and they could no longer maintain appropriate paces. Physiologists have shown us that in order to achieve peak performance and prevent injury and overtraining the body requires rest and recovery in order to absorb the hard workouts performed by an athlete. As we get deeper into the science of recovery the physical mechanisms of recovery will become more clear. Luckily, in the base phase recovery is the name of the game. Soreness is sometimes experienced early on, but during the base phase of running the easy mileage builds up and rest days are easier to come across.
One of my favorite quotes from the book Running with the Buffaloes is "be brave enough to say no". Sometimes the hardest part of training for an athlete is learning to put it all aside and just recover. Trust yourself enough to rest when it's necessary.
Base Phase Workout:
Rest
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