This is the last in the 6 part series about the different disciplines of triathlon. Over the past few months we have covered Swim, Bike, Run, Nutrition, Transition, and now Recovery. You might be asking yourself why it's important to talk about recovery at all. More is better. If you have free time, get out there and pound the pavement, ride the waves, cruise on your wheels. More training time leads to better performance right? No. no that's not true. Sometimes less is better and sometimes more is more. The key is to understand the important role recovery plays in your training. Overall, when it comes to recovery people typically fall into one of two categories, those that say:

1. Recovery is for sissies. I'm never taking a day off! You're going to have to pry my running shoes off my feet!

OR

2. Ahh, now it's time to grab a beer, kick up my feet, put on some football and eat nachos -- No brainer.

Um, do you really think that either one of the above is the best way to handle recovery? No. Non. Nyet. Nein.

I think that in order to understand the importance of recovery, you need to think of recovery as "regeneration". The recovery process includes repairing damage to your muscles, replenishing glycogen stores, and rebuilding your immune system. Workouts break you down, recovery helps you rebuild "better, stronger, faster". (Wow, another reference to the 6 million dollar Man!). Recovery is a vital part of any training plan or for anyone exercising on a regular basis. Within a training plan there should be a recovery week every 3rd or 4th week and within each week there should be 2-3 recovery days. There are several ways to approach recovery within a training plan, but an easy way to classify recovery is - Active and Passive.

Active recovery - Calm down there, active recovery doesn't involve running 20 miles at an 'easy' pace after a mile swim. Active recovery refers to easy, shorter workouts that allow your muscles the chance to regenerate. These active recovery days are a good opportunity to work on form and technique in all three sports. For example, rather than swim slowly for 30 minutes, work on the swim skill by doing drills that help you get a better feel of the water and power for your stroke. On the bike work on cadence, pedaling skills, and cornering. And finally on the run focus on run cadence and good posture. However, if all of that seems too taxing on an easy peasy recovery day, then keep it light and easy and dream about rainbows and unicorns.

Passive Recovery- when in doubt, take a day off! Passive recovery refers to....well....you guessed it, not doing anything! You can maybe do light yoga (no, not power yoga and no, not everything is a competition). You can also take a bath with epsom salt, get a stretch or a massage, enjoy a little extra sleep or foam roll -- try it without cursing this time. I'm sorry to say passive recovery is NOT the time to eat fried foods and drink that magnum of your favorite wine (save that for the offseason -- no I didn't just say that). Eating healthy is also an important part of recovery (See below in our Athlete's Plate section).

If you want to know the best way to incorporate recovery into your training, check out our training opportunities at BSE! -hint, see the link below.