Planned and unplanned breaks from training
What happened when I took a week off from marathon training.
When mapping out a marathon or half marathon training plan, either for myself or for a runner, I’ll always include ‘drop-back weeks’. Marathon training can be intense, with increasing mileage each week. A drop-back week reduces the training load temporarily, meaning you’ll do the same amount of runs but lower mileage and possible intensity too. This gives your body extra time to recover from the weeks of increasing mileage.
Recovery is an important part of training and that doesn’t just mean the days between your running (which are vital) but some lighter sessions and lighter weeks too. As you gradually build your mileage, your body needs time to adapt to the increased demands. Drop-back weeks allow your body more chance to absorb the training stress and become stronger.
Mental benefits of drop-back weeks
Drop-back week (you might also hear them called ‘down weeks’) are also good mentally. A drop-back week provides a mental break as well as a physical one, helping you to avoid feeling burnt out or demotivated - knowing that you have a slightly lighter load on the horizon can help you push through the week ahead of you to get there. When you’re training for a marathon or half-marathon, your down week might have a long run that’s slightly shorter than the week before and finding yourself saying to yourself or out loud “only 15 miles this week” is a huge confidence boost.
We all have social lives and other responsibilities too, so as much as possible, I’ll try to coincide drop-back weeks with weeks where I or a runner have things other than running going on.
Taking a week off from marathon training
February, as parents and teachers everywhere know, involves half term and this year I had planned a down week from my marathon training to coincide with this school holiday. We were away in Norfolk for a week, and although it’s somewhere I’d love to do a lot of running, it never works out that way. I’d planned a lighter training week but then I got a cold and it ended up being a week of no running at all.
It’s very rare for a training period to go exactly as it’s written on a training plan. Illness, niggles, life and all our other commitments have a habit of getting in the way at some point. Hiccups happen, but it’s how we respond to these that matters.
If it’s a mild illness or a case of life getting in the way, just ignore any missed training and get back to it when you can as if nothing happened. Don’t try cramming in the missed miles to the following week as this will overload the next week and risk injury or burnout.
Here’s my Strava graph showing my week off. As you can see, 7 days of not running (Saturday to Friday hence there is one run showing that week) is just one week in what has otherwise been a solid build up so far. No cause for panic.
This is very well timed for me! I’m following your 3 runs a week marathon plan for London and this week is a drop-back week anyway, but a foot/ankle niggle has got a bit worse than a niggle and I think it may end up being a full week off… let’s see how it does with the strapping from my osteopath. But, whatever happens, it’s ok as I’m otherwise on track and these things happen. The most important thing is getting to the start line as then I can get round. Thank you!