Is it right ?

[OLs3m]

My coach told me : ' After a hard competition during the weekend (Saturday and Sunday) you should run round 15-20km ? ' is it right, I thought i must run 5-6km slowly or to have a rest ..

[Nails]

now thats an interesting perspective, you sure your coach didn't mean if you don't do a competition then do a 15-10k run?

[Kitch]

Ask again
if your coach says the same thing
ask why, how this will help your training.

[OLs3m]

I asked him why I should run and he told me that long running after a competition will 'delete' some 'acid' from my body i think .. I don't know how to explain this in English...

[mharky]

Yeah it will "remove" lacitc acid from the blood, but you don't normally have to do that much! 10-30minutes should be enough

[Guest]

Maybe he's referring to that old adage LSD after speed.

It still runs true in most people's training today.

Sh@t, talking about drugs again! I mean Long Slow Distance.

Lard

[SJ]

Does it expain why resting the day after a race which leaves you achy actually delays when the aches go...that's what I used to do...now I find the sooner I run, the sooner the aches go, despite it sometimes being unpleasant starting off

is this due to getting rid of the lactic acid, a bit like stretching?

[Mr. Furness]

getting rid of the lactic in a warm down will lessen the heavy legs in the day(s) after. but if the legs are sore for a few days after, it means you have slightly damaged the muscle and it is recovering- this happened to me after the weekend! probably insufficient warm up resulting in lots of microscopic tears to the muscle fibres, and then sore legs for two days. i think.

someone who knows more what they're talking about feel free to correct me.

[rocky]

i don't know what i'm talking about, but im pretty sure that lactate removal, even with no post-exertion exercise, is pretty swift ~1 hour or so. All aches after that are due to muscle damage.

[FatBoy]

Some schools of thought on recovery from hard races/sessions is that you should do a few short sprints. I've tried it and it doesn't seem to make much difference either way to me.

A shortish slow run the next day however does seem to loosen up tired muscles for me.

[Kitch]

OLs3m

yes that makes sense.

As Rocky says most tof the lactate will be gone from your body in an hour after you run.
But when you run hard you always cause damage to your muscles and this takes some days to repair.

A slow easy run the day after a race increases the blood flow in your muscles, this washes away all the waste products from the muscle damage, it brings oxygen and chemicals to the muscle to help them repair quickly.

As Mharky says it does not need to be as much as 15km to do this - 15 - 30 mins.

[SJ]

thanks guys

[ER]

Post race ice baths for the dedicated; massage the day after; replacing lost nutrients are also ways to aid recovery.