[Jan]

Hi there,

I will embark on a 1 week kayaking trip (around 8 h of paddling per day) on the lakes of southern sweden in the middle of october and I’m wondering how I should organise my running training before and after it. This will be taxing for me, though not too extreme and my legs won’t do any work. Can I see this as recovery from my regular training or not?

I thought about overreaching a bit and do one very hard run 2 days before I leave. Is this a bad idea? Should I just keep training as normal? Should I even taper as I would do for a taxing hiking trip?

For picking up training again I just thought about starting right away with the same work-outs as on the last “normal” week of training. What do you think? After a one week hiking trip I would completely rest for a week and then do one week with half of the volume I did before.

Thanks for any answers!

Topic

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on September 25, 2019 at 7:51 am #29019

Jan;

I think the over reaching idea before the kayak trip is a good choice. You might want to make the overreaching block more than just one day. I’d consider doing a bigger week or at least several big days back to back. Then resting your legs will be a welcome relief. When you return from the kayaking trip easy back into normal training for a few days with mainly easy runs to see how you feel before doing anything very taxing.

Scott

[Jan]

Jan on September 25, 2019 at 8:18 am #29021

Hi Scott,

thanks for the quick answer!

So to generalise this: You can recover from taxing aerobic “leg endurance” sessions while doing taxing aerobic “upper body endurance” sessions. Right?

[allan.xperia]

allan.xperia on September 25, 2019 at 11:04 am #29034

How much have you paddled before?

Paddling a kayak is not really rest for the legs. Depending on how much leg work the cockpit and seat allows, you will either work actively with the legs or at least apply a lot of “oscillating” force transfer through the legs while doing most of the remaining work with your core muscles.

I have often wondered myself if my kayaking should be seen as recovery from running or an added load to the same muscles as I use in running.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on September 26, 2019 at 8:25 pm #29117

I’m not a kayaker so I’m probably out of my depth with my answer. But I would say that you can get some good recovery for your legs by doing moderate upper body work.

Scott

[Jan]

Jan on September 26, 2019 at 11:44 pm #29120

@Scott: Thanks again!

@Allan: I am rather new to kayaking. I thing my kayak is too narrow in the front to allow a lot of leg work. And as this will be a rather relaxed tour (not much accelerating) and I won’t have currents, I hope recovery for the legs will be sufficient.
I did a 3-day-trip (around 10 hours per day) last year with it and really felt my upper body after it, especially the upper back, but not the legs.