It’s now been 10 days since the Surf City half and I feel like I’m fully recovered. The biggest reason why I switched to the half from the full is that a full marathon can take 2-3 weeks to fully recover from. Since I knew I wouldn’t be getting my BQ at Surf City, I didn’t want to waste 3 weeks recovering when I could be spending that precious time getting faster!
Last week was nice. I enjoyed the recovery and slept a lot (also have been working a lot – a reason for the lack of posts!). There are several different ways to recover from a race, but I tend to gravitate toward walks, yoga and easy runs. Here’s what my week looked like:
Monday – ~2.5 mile walk at lunch with a co-worker, ~1.5 mile walk after work with Mike. I always take a longish walk the day after a race to help get the blood flowing and avoid stiffness.
Tuesday – Lunchtime Yoga. Luckily this was a very stretch-focused yoga workout so I felt like it was the perfect recovery workout.
Wednesday – 5 very slow recovery miles in the morning. My legs didn’t feel very tired/sore but I purposely kept the pace slow.
Thursday – Lunchtime Yoga again! This time it was very strength based which was exactly what I wanted. I had considered getting back into my strength routine but was not feeling motivated to push myself through a self-created workout. The structure of a group class was just what I needed.
Friday – 5 more slow miles in the morning. Pace was slightly faster but still slow.
Saturday – 5 more slow miles followed by P90X Ab Ripper. Again, slightly faster but still easy.
Sunday – 10 mile run. I felt pretty good on this run and noticed my pace getting faster throughout. By the end I was comfortably running high 8 min/miles.
Recovering from a race is very important! Don’t ever push your pace too much or do anything you really don’t feel like doing during that first week. It’s better to err on the side of too little than too much. The last thing you want to do is create more damage on your muscles and extend your recovery time. Other ways to speed recovery are massage and foam rolling. A clean diet helps too!
This morning I had my first tempo run post race and I felt great! I really can tell that my recovery went as planned and now I am ready to dominate the next 10.5 weeks until Eugene!
What kind of workouts do you do the week after a race? Do you do anything else to help speed up recovery?
Sounds like you took recovery well and are on track for a great push into Eugene.
(I’d personally replace all that yoga with swimming though, since I’m terrible at yoga and addicted to swimming. Best recovery exercise ever.)