Last week I had food poisoning, and it knocked me sideways. I had to cancel classes. I didn’t have the energy to hold a plank, let alone teach one. For days, my world shrank to the sofa and my bed, and sleeping felt like the only job I had.
My members were brilliant about it, sending messages telling me to rest and listen to my body. To be fair, listening to my body is something I’m pretty good at. But lying there with absolutely no choice but to rest gave me a lot of time to think about what rest actually means, especially as we get older.
Why rest and recovery matters more for runners over 40
Here’s the thing about rest and recovery for runners over 40: it isn’t optional extra, it’s part of the training. And the older we get, the truer that becomes.
I’ve noticed my own training changing a lot over the last few years, especially since I started training for triathlons. Running takes far more out of me than swimming or cycling ever does. The impact, the load through my joints, the sheer effort of it. My body feels it differently to a bike ride or a swim, and it needs more from me afterwards to bounce back.
That’s the bit so many runners miss. We’re brilliant at pushing through. We’re not always so brilliant at building in the recovery that makes the pushing through sustainable.
What’s actually happening when we rest
When you rest, your body isn’t doing nothing. Far from it. Rest is when the real work happens.
- Muscles repair themselves. Running causes tiny amounts of damage to muscle fibres, that’s normal and it’s how you get stronger. But the actual repair and strengthening happens afterwards, when you’re resting, not while you’re pounding the pavement.
- Your nervous system resets. Running, especially hard or long runs, is a stress on your central nervous system as well as your muscles. It needs downtime to recalibrate.
- Hormones rebalance. Rest allows your body to regulate cortisol and other stress hormones that get raised by training. Leave them raised too long and you’re looking at poor sleep, low energy and a body that holds onto fat rather than lets it go.
- Your immune system catches up. This is the one I felt hard last week. Push your body without enough recovery and your immune system takes the hit. It’s often not a coincidence when we get run down or unwell after a heavy patch of training or a stressful few week.
And here’s the part that matters most for those of us over 40: all of this takes longer than it used to. Our hormones are shifting, our recovery capacity naturally slows, and the training that worked for us at 30 needs adjusting at 45, 50, 60 and beyond. That’s not a decline, it’s just biology, and once you understand it, you can work with it rather than fight it.
Rest doesn’t have to mean doing nothing
Being stuck on the sofa last week was proper, forced, do-nothing rest. That has its place when your body needs it. But most of the time, the rest days in your training plan don’t need to mean total inactivity.
This is where Pilates comes in.
Pilates is active recovery. It gets blood flowing to tired muscles without adding fatigue on top of fatigue. It works on mobility in the hips, spine and shoulders that gets stiff and tight from repetitive running. It strengthens the deep core and pelvic floor muscles that support your running form, but without the pounding impact of another run. The breathwork alone helps bring your nervous system down out of that “go, go, go” state that so many of us runners live in.
That’s exactly why I built my membership around Pilates for runners. It’s not about replacing your running. It’s about giving your body what it needs on the days it’s not running, so the running you do is stronger, safer and lasts you decades, not just this season.
Rest isn’t weakness. It isn’t giving up on your goals. It’s where the strength actually gets built.
I didn’t choose to be flat out on the sofa last week; my body chose it for me. But it reminded me of something I try to tell my members all the time: listen to your body, respect what it’s asking for, and build recovery into your training as seriously as you build in your runs.