Actually I run 7 days a week. If you have a "off" day or "rest" day you will not be able to maintain your conditioning (if you want to call it that). Believe me, in the end those 3-5 miles I put in on Sundays help out in races. No, they're not fast, they're just a consistent recovery...and they don't seem to wear me out too much. So my advice is talk to your coach about running on Sundays too.

Another question...does your team do runs together all the time at practice? Because for us each person has his own level of mile week and own pace...the only times we run together as a whole team are our slow recovery runs after races.

I think its a little messed up that your coach has you taking off the day right after a race. I need a "recovery day" after every race, if not I can barely walk the next morning. Be careful about training too much though. Your body needs time to recover and you don't want an overuse injury that is going to end your season.

around here we all do "recovery sets" after a race. . . i think it is a horrible idea to take the day off after a race, (or any day!) we have 12-14 days cycles with 1 off day between each. recovery sets are kind of like an easy fartlek session, there is nt really a right or a wrong way to do them, but they last 5 minutes and you do 8-16 depending on your level of fitness (or more ..eek) each 5 minute set consists of something like this.. 2 min run 1 min pace 1 min run 1 min walk. the sets are done in a continous fashion (ie dont stop between each set, they arent reeallly hard, and the 1 min walk is in there, focus on relaxing in that part) the run can be as slow as you want it to be, but still has to hold proper running for and biomechanics. expirement a little, they really help work lactic out of the muscles, and are good in a small group of 3-5 people.