The marathon training plan you follow may or may not instruct you to add some speed work such as tempo runs or track intervals into your weekly training. But it will definitely incorporate a day or so of complete rest a week, and possibly cross-training and easy-run days. Make sure you follow the plan.

Rest days, easy runs and cross-training are all as essential to your training plan as hard or long workouts because they allow your body time to fully recover before your next hard or long effort. It’s not a good idea to do two hard workouts back-to-back, such as a local 10K on Saturday and then your weekly long run on Sunday. Doing so will not only lengthen your recovery time, but it could lead to injury.