You’ve just crossed the marathon finish line—medal in hand, legs like jelly, and a flood of endorphins coursing through your veins. You’ve accomplished something incredible, but now comes the often-overlooked yet essential part: recovery. As you savor your victory and navigate the challenging task of going down stairs, it’s crucial to take steps that will help your body heal, rebuild, and prepare for future miles.
As a general rule of thumb, for the half marathon distance it is best to allow 1-3 days completely off immediately after the race. For marathon distance, at least 7-10 days completely off from running is recommended. Some people will need more! The time it takes to recover depends on many factors, including your experience, how fast you ran, and how you feel. Did you race the marathon or run for fun? If you raced, you will need more recovery time. One school of thought is to take off one day per mile you raced.
As you get antsy, remind yourself that recovery is an important part of your training plan. It is imperative to let the body heal before starting another training cycle. However, this doesn’t mean becoming a couch potato. Use this time to start building towards your next event.
There are two phases of recovery after a half marathon or marathon: passive and active recovery.
Passive recovery is a time to assess your performance and training plan. What can I improve upon? Was I prepared for the demands of the race? How was my strength? Was I fatigued? Did my nutrition plan carry me through the race? How did my posture and running form hold up? Was I properly prepared for the course? This information helps you tweak your next training plan, as well as build upon your strengths and work on your weaknesses. It’s a great idea to write these things down, because it’s easy to forget how you felt in your race.
Active recovery is exercise at a lower intensity and shorter duration than when you are training. In general, stick to an hour or less and a heart rate of 60-75% of your maximum. Low intensity exercise provides the benefits of stimulating circulation to help the soft tissue heal and recover. Activities such as cycling, swimming, elliptical, or going for a walk are great ways to get your body moving during this time before you progress back to running. This period of active recovery lasts about 7-10 days. It’s most important to note how you feel. You may need more recovery time than the general rules of thumb. If you feel you need more recovery time, take it!
Even in highly trained runners, a marathon causes significant stress to the body. Byproducts of muscle breakdown can remain at elevated levels in the blood for a few weeks. As your body tried to get rid of these byproducts, your muscles aren’t functioning at full capacity, which makes working out more effortful and raises the risk of injury
Let your body be the gauge. If you return to running and you find you are breathing at a rate associated with a 5K race rather than an easy training run, this is your body’s way of letting you know it’s still fatigued. Slow it down, take more recovery. Once your heart rate and breathing rate return to normal, you can gradually increase your pace and distance, and rebuild your mileage. This brings you to the next phase of your training – the maintenance phase. This is the period where maintain your fitness and performance gains, making you well positioned to ramp up smoothly when you are ready to train for your next race.
