Right now my training load is pretty pathetic since I'm between gyms and nearing the end of my PhD.

I used to do as much as I could physically force myself to do while juggling other commitments but now i'm not so sure that's a good idea.

Recovery is just as important as training and I'm thinking a few really good quality conditioning sessions a week might be more beneficial than 10 half arsed ones since you're constantly fatigued.

for example the last 3 weeks I've allowed a good amount of full recovery time after my long runs on the weekend. More than i would normally like and I'm not getting many intense sessions in apart from this - despite having always had the idea of a high total weekly mileage being important for a runner.

These runs are approx 30 km but with a walk warm up and cool down (in training for a marathon).

3 weeks and 3 long runs - the first I was sore for 4 days afterwards, the 2nd for only 2 days afterwards and the third I felt really sore while running the last 10 km but didn't get ANY post-workout stiffness!

I'm putting the fast improvement in recovery time down to having sufficient recovery time allowing my body to make the most of the session and adapt.

However, the flip side of this is that for boxing you need skills which take a long time to learn so you might want to maximise your technical training time.

Still I've been told before that skills should be practiced at their natural pace / momentum to train them correctly which would be fast at least. With that in mind it's hard to know how to balance maximising technical time and allowing recovery to train it at top speed?!?!

Also it's going to be easier to keep your weight down by training often.

So basically I have contradicting ideas at the moment and would love to hear other's opinions on this!