Training Wrap-Up Week Three

This week my legs discovered that they had a voice, and they decided to use that voice to complain.
loudly.
I guess it is to be expected.  That is why most training plans call for a rest or recovery week during training every 3-4 weeks.

Here is a pretty good article about incorporating recovery weeks within the training cycle.

Excerpt:

With each week that you increase your overall mileage, stretch out your long run, or add more challenging workouts, you provide yourself with new or additional stimuli for improvement. You also become progressively more tired from the increased training load, and if you ignore this accumulation of fatigue, your performance will eventually start to stagnate or suffer. The likelihood of illness or injury also rises if you continue to add to your training load without periodically scaling back volume or intensity. In my experience, most runners tend to get stale, sick, or hurt after they’ve strung together too many weeks in a row—usually more than three—without reducing their overall training volume by 20–30 percent for at least seven days.

 I can definitely feel (in my own legs) the truth behind this article!!  So this next week will be a scale back week.  We'll see if my legs use their newfound voice to thank me!

Week 3 highlights:

• Days running: 5
• Long run: 10 miles
• Total miles: 27
• Days strength training: 2 (yay for me!)
• Recovery tights purchased: 1

I have to say that I was so proud of my long run this week.  After my 1 mile warm up, I ran the remaining 9 miles without any walk breaks!  Remember a few weeks back when I was so shocked that I could run 5 miles without walk breaks?  And the amazing part was that it wasn't even difficult!  I know Galloway says that you get the same endurance benefits during a long run with walk breaks as you do running continuously, but I don't think I really believed it until Saturday!

This week, I also purchased these tights to be used during recovery:

Women's AMP PRO2 Tight

"Saucony AMP PRO2 Performance wear is made with revolutionary Celliant® fabric that increases oxygen in the body to give you more energy."

Hmmm.  I purchased these tights based mostly on this blogger's review, and the fact that Amazon had them marked down ridiculously low.  Here are my thoughts so far:

Pros:

• Very comfortable - I slept in them all night!  And I am pretty easily annoyed by clothing at night.  
• Lightweight - I was able to wear them under my jeans all day without overheating.

Con:

• They are not nearly as compressive as my CW-X. That I expected.  My CW-X tights would be too tight to wear comfortably to sleep in or under clothes in my opinion.  However, these tights were not even as tight as my Under Armour or my Nike Pro compression tights!

So, the big question was "did they work?"

And the answer is... "maybe"

I did feel like I got some benefit from wearing them, but my legs were in such bad shape last week that wearing anything that added a little warmth to my tired muscles would have probably helped.  I'll continue testing them over the next couple of months and let you know what conclusion I eventually reach.

Q:  Do you have any special clothing you wear for recovery?