Every time I decrease my frequency of running I regret it when I decide to ramp back up.  However it does help on the home front, to do some morning things with the kids on Sunday (rather than run) after a long training cycle.  Trade offs I guess.

I am constantly amazed at the rapid pace I seem to lose fitness if I take time off.  I need to find what is reasonable as a maintenance level for me.  Especially with basketball season coming up.

Recovery and maintenance to me are 2 distinct things. Recovery is the period where you are doing exactly that.... letting the body recover from a long/hard effort. Maintenance is a time period where you are just running along feeling fine but not specifically training for anything. Similar to base building but keeping your mileage down.

I guess one could say I'm in a maintenance phase at the moment from Superior100 last month. I moved past recovery now it being more than a month since the race. I don't have any races on the horizon, so am just enjoying running. During my race training I was running about 50-75 mpw. Right now I've only been hitting about 30-40 mpw, but I haven't been doing any "long" runs. I do plan to insert those every once in awhile, so will be closer to 50 during those weeks. I plan to stay in this range for another month or so, maybe getting more into a base building phase in late November/December where I will ramp up the mileage some. 

My take away from all of this... keep a long run in your schedule every 3-4 weeks even when in maintenance mode to keep yourself ready for when you want to get back into training.

 

In my current "maintenance" phase I am still running 5-6 days/week, but the runs are shorter. So the frequency stays pretty much the same as my 5-7 days when in training.

Hmmm. Good point. That may be the key to me not losing as much as I thought I would this summer.

Unless I'm injured, I don't actively switch in recovery periods. I feel that for the body, significant ramping up/ramping down of intensity is not so good in the long term (might damage the heart?). I'm not sure, though, just my opinion. Don't take this as a guideline.

I enjoy what has been called "maintenance" here, that is, taking it more lightly after a goal race for a while, and running just what feels good, not what I think I "should" be doing (long runs, tempo runs, etc). That might include some high mileage or fast, intensive runs, too, but not on a regular basis with a weekly goal. However, I usually find myself back "in the routine", with my usual 4-5 days of running per week, at a mileage similar to what I ran during the training phase for the last race (typically like for a 50k distance), within 2-3 weeks.

I am not sure how to "get down" from the rigorous training for the OC100. I'd like to spend more time with the family, and have some time to relax, so I guess I'll just run less often, and a bit shorter, reducing my mileage by 15-20%, and run maybe a day less per week (although I have to admit, I did not have a strict schedule requiring me to run a certain number of days and miles a week).

I really enjoy running without any (mental) pressure, but I'd like to stay in good shape throughout winter, to get ready for Eastern States, which will be a project over several months anyway.

I thought we would be talking abour recovery periods bewteen racing.  Last year I raced too often and never hit a full peak / great perfromance.  I had a lot of good performances that took a great effort to get to.  I ended up with > 6,000 miles running for the year (Most ever) and had an OK racing season.

I think I found that like marathon training, I need to have an intelligent build up, that does not include long races to get to a goal race.  Some poeple do well doing marathon - 50M in a build up, I do not.  It might be because I cannot run a race at "Training pace".

So my cycle for 2014

Now - End of November:  Heal injuries, base build, easy trail / hill work ... 60-75% full training mileage (60-80 MPW)

December - Add 2 ultra-training runs for the month (4+ hours), Add striders / hill repeats (Leg speed) Mileage 70-85%

Jan - Start training

*  Including much longer trail / hill sessions

*  Tempos ~ Both Shorter LAT and long tempos

*  Increase ultra workouts 1 @ 4+ hours and 1 @ 6+ hours

*  Mileage up to 80-100% (90-110 MPW)

February 1st ~ 50k trail race (Snow and ice)

March - Find room for some Vo2 work or Critical Velocity(CV) and 2nd half start reducing training stress

April 19th goal race ~ 100k

Then it gets a little dicey ~ But I am going to take the chance on trying to race hard again June 7-8th in a 24 hour race

I think the Feb 50k will be OK - I am a little cautious on winter trail running.

The April and June race are too close together and I will under perform in June.

Then I will just enjoy the summer ~ less training and more just running.

Then try and peak for a late October or November race ... then repeat.

My bigger problem is when I am not training ~ I am mentally on vacation from training and my beer / bad food consumption increases dramatically.  Couple this with less activity = usually 10+ pounds per month.

I was between such extremes and on a roller coaster.  I would be fat and out of shape, then have to eat to lose a lot of weight ... usually 30-40 pounds over 3-4 months ... giving up so much and feeling so deprived that when a key event was over, I would go to extreme over-indulgence.

I am trying a new approach as of mid-september and trying to lose weight, but not in an extreme fashion.  It is actually much easier to lose weight when not trying to run 100-150 mile weeks.  Less volume and less intensity, more low impact variety of activities.

To lose weight now, my goal is to get a minimum of 70 miles worth of activities (relate it back to a 70 mile running week in effort and calories burned), through a variety of activities.  Add in consistent weights, core and stretching and lower weekly weight loss totals and I am happier.

I hope I have devised a plan that I can live by (Maybe tweak slightly after at goal weight) from now on.  Sometimes moderation is much more difficult than extreme.