Still hiting the ditch pretty regularly.

I thought this was pretty tight. This rings true to me



From the March issue of "Running Times" by Pete Pfitzinger:

Training leads to fatigue that in turns leads to recovery and that in turn leads to supercompensation. Thus with the right combination of type, duration and intensity of training, the body "adapts" to a higher level. The supercompensation is the accumlated result of training.


One needs the optimal balance with 2 - 3 hard training sessions per week even though it takes 5 - 10 days to completely recover from a hard session (and I have read elsewhere up to 30 days for a run of > 18 miles). It is also interesting that it takes at least 10 days to obtain the full benefit of a workout - something to keep in mind when during the taper you believe you need one more long run, one more full tempo ru, one more set of hills in the last week or so before the race.

How long to train: It takes at least six weeks for results to show up through lab testing so Rome (marathon) was not build in a day. Also something to quite in mind because of all of the recent threads about how discouraged people are after their first ''long' long run.

So what is the prefect balance because training and recovery: The bad news is that GENETICS will be the one number determing factor. (Health, lifestyle and current level of training are also factors). A huge factor when thinking that you are not doing as well as person "X" because you may be one person who simply adapts slower and needs more recovery.

So the key points seem to be:

1) 10 days at least is required for training to obtain the full benefits of training.

2) 6 weeks at least to show improved performance.

3) The right mix of intensity, duration, type of runs and recovery is dependent upon the genetics of the individual.