It’s about that time of the year, within the couple next months many runners start their off season. What is off season and why is it so important?

Off season is one of the most important cycle of your training. Once you have finished your training and race season and before you start new training cycle, you should spend off season. Off season usually last two to three weeks.
Many of the runners don’t know how spent off season or what is it actually means, should you still go for the run or not? Let’s image that you have run couple race during one year, you have spent months to training to them, your body has been under the stress all the time. You just finished your last marathon of this year and you are about the start new training cycle for next year races. Stop, hold on! Before you are start anything new, take a two to three weeks off.

Why take a break? Your body need to recover properly from the latest season. Even though, you don’t feel tired and wanted to continue the training, your body might feel tired, but it doesn’t tell it to you, yet. Taking a break, give you body time to repair everything, it gives your mind time to rest and re-download your batteries. This can also help preventing injuries.

What you should do during the off season? Eat junk food and lay in the bed in the whole time? No. Of course you can relax and take it easy, but don’t stop moving, play games, do the other sports that you don’t have time during the training season. In this way, you won’t lose all of your fitness, but your running muscles get time to relax and recover. During the off season is also recommendable to take massage and open all the muscle tightness.