Yesterday I took a 17 mile long run: the kind of run that would’ve been the longest run of my training season anytime up until the second half of 2023. This year, it was the second run of my training season. That is a significant increase in difficulty and training load. I definitely felt it yesterday evening, too! I was sore enough that I ended up taking some Aleve so that I would sleep more easily. It was a genuinely hard workout, and the more so because I had decided to do it a day sooner than planned because the forecast called for snow and wind today.¹

Today, though, I was able to go out for a one hour foundation run — easy zone 2 work, but a full hour of it —  and felt good the whole time. In fact, I went out in the sub-20º snowy weather because I was feeling borderline antsy to get out and go! My performance on the run validated that choice, too: despite snowy trails, I ran well, the effort felt quite manageable, and I felt good.

My main observation was that I had not only done harder work than I could have done just a few years ago, but that I had also recovered far more quickly than I would have back then. In some ways, the fact that the day after a long run I could go out and do a “foundation run” — not even a “recovery” run but my normal daily base work — was a bigger sign of improvement than the long run itself. My body absolutely would not have recovered that quickly from that kind of run duration even a year ago, much less at any point earlier in my years of running.

There are a lot of ways to “measure” one’s progress as an endurance athlete, and it is easy (and not wrong!) to reach for speed/pace and other such output metrics as key indicators of improved fitness. It is just as important that we be durable, though: able to “stay available” (as the guys on The Running Public like to put it) and keep showing up week in and week out. Recovery time, at least for me, is a really helpful signal of that, even while it says little about how fast I am.