The Secret to Becoming the Best Athlete

If you could know the secret to becoming the best athlete, staying injury-free and really get the most out of your workouts what would you do? Would you pay money? Most would. Would you read this post? Heck yeah!

I think we can all agree that Kenyans are some of the best runners in the world. They have the fastest marathoners and very, very fast runners at all distances. I wrote a post last Sunday on fast Kenyan athletes who don't train on Sunday. Recently I added links to each of their names for more information and I updated some of their times. You will recall that they take a day of the week, many times for religious purposes, to rest completely. Those who DO train on Sunday are the minority.

When you train hard every day you continually deplete what is called muscle glycogen. It takes a day or two to replenish this and that is the function of easy days. You will also recall the run I had with St. George Marathon champion Iain Hunter where I asked him for his best advice. One of the things he told me was to take the easy days easy. The point of an easy day is not to see who's the fastest or beat yourself into the ground like you did the previous day, but rather a chance to get your muscles moving, heart pumping and recover from the previous day's workout.

The last point is when it comes to the end of a season and the Kenyans have had their last race they rest hard-core. I'm not talking about a rest where you play other sports and give yourself a mental break, I'm talking about a month to two-month total rest and recovery. Moses Kiptanui, Nixon Kiprotich and Patrick Sang would take these total-rest recoveries.

In summary, if you want to be the best, have less injuries and really get the most out of your hard workouts you need to rest one day out of the seven, take the easy days easy and after the season is over take a month or two off. These are ways to run fearless, enjoy!