Reader Question: Marathon Recovery

Jenn asked,

Could you do a post on what your routine is post-marathon? Like, the day after, do you rest completely? And for how many days do you take off completely and when do you start back up? Thanks!

I have to say this: Listen to your body. If you haven’t been in the game very long, it’s easy to get caught in what other bloggers are doing and compare yourself… I need to run marathons because that’s what everyone does… I need to run 8 days a week… I need to eat some nasty looking smoothie because that’s what you do when you’re healthy….

Every body trains differently, reacts differently and recovers differently so the most important thing is to be in tune with your how your body is responding instead of listening to some rando blogger with zero training, education, or qualifications in this arena.

That being said, now I’ll tell you what to do. :/

The standard wisdom is to take one day off for every mile you raced so essentially a month off after a marathon. I think that’s a bit excessive: I think 2-3 weeks is generally enough but it never hurts to take a little extra time off.

Let’s clarify that ‘time off’ doesn’t mean taking time off from life, living on your couch and doing no more physical activity than breathing. You can still cross train and do low impact, low intensity non-running activities such as swimming, biking, walking, the elliptical machine, Pilates.

For awhile you will want to eat everything in sight (HELLO I RAN A MARATHON, GIVE ME THE PIE, THE WHOLE PIE!), but if you do that for too long combined with very little physical activity, all you will get is pie thighs. Remember that the thinking shouldn’t be, I just finished a marathon so now I never have to workout again! Umm no, you’re doing it wrong. Find a new goal, a new workout, a new activity.

So here’s a very generic sample of what one could do post-marathon:

Post-race week one: continue to stretch and go on some walks if you can. Walking is a great, easy, free, do it anywhere way to move your body, shake out your legs, get fresh air, etc.

Week two: if you’re feeling good, hit the gym and take a class that you’ve missed for the past 4 months in training, do some cardio, hit the spin bikes, whatever.

Week 3-4: start re-introducing some easy, shorter runs into your routine. Leave the Garmin at home and go based on feel. Run just for fun, not for numbers, pace, etc.

Granted, some people recover quicker and are out jogging the next day; some runners might need to take a month or more off from running. There’s no shame in that – you’re not gaining anything from that easy 5 miler that you have to do right after a race. Those “junk” miles are not going to get you any closer to a goal.

Now, you asked what I do and I’m going to contradict everything I just said… One of my favorite runs is the day after a marathon. It’s very slow (for me), easy and I don’t look at pace at all; usually I do about 6 miles in an hour. I reflect on my race the day before, shake out my legs and test out how I’m feeling. It’s an expectation-less run and I’m usually still on my marathon high.

But I don’t always run after a marathon; this past week I took 3 days in a row off from running. It just all depends on how I’m feeling. Usually I recover very quickly, but I’ve also run 15 marathons this year alone so my body handles it well and 95% of the time I don’t run or race at a hard, hard effort.

The last thing I’ll say is time off is good for avoiding mental burnout. You’ve trained for 4 months, immersed yourself in this crazy world of all things running, spent the last week stressing and obsessing over your training, spent Saturday so nervous and anxious you couldn’t sleep a wink and thought you’d throw up from nerves at the start line. Running is mental. So you might want to take a little time off to mentally recover as well so you come back wanting more and excited again, not burnt out.

After last weekend’s marathon as we were walking away from the finish area, my husband asked how I was feeling and I said that I felt like crying. Not fluent in crazy, he asked, Sad tears or happy ones??

Neither sad or happy, just emotionally and mentally exhausted from the day. I spent all day worrying about if I was recovering well enough, eating the right stuff, wondering if I’d fall apart, and questioning my pace that when it was over, it was a huge mental relief. Of course I didn’t cry – I reserve my tears for when I miss out on a Kate Spade sale and the handbag that I really wanted sells out… thanks Kerri for the heads up.

So this is how my post-marathon week of workouts went:

Monday: Walked on hotel treadmill for an hour at an incline walked dog 2 miles

Tuesday: Walked with Monica 5 miles walked dog 2 miles

Wednesday: Barre class with Bri

Thursday: Easy 7.25 miles

Friday: Cardio & Core high intensity class at gym

Saturday: Ran easy 7 miles Barre class

Sunday: Ran 11 miles walked 4 miles with Monica

Today: Barre class 9 miles

*A huge congrats to Mama Laughlin who (lost 60 pounds and got in killer shape) ran her first marathon yesterday and Emily who ran a 50 miler and placed in the top 10!!!