I get a lot of questions around recovery. How long should I recover after a marathon? Is it ok to run two days later? Three days later? Should I take a week off? What should I eat? Etc. This is another one of those “It depends.” Kind of answers. I’ll break this topic up in to several posts, and I’d like to start with what I’ll call the “inputs” of recovery. What are the things that cause us to need to recover in the first place and determine the length of that recovery?
Base Fitness
This is the foundation for everything. If you are a beginner and have maybe only run 10 miles a week for a short period of time, then racing a 5k or 10k may leave you very sore and require a significant recovery period. On the other hand, if you are someone who is training for an ultra-marathon and have years of experience and average weekly mileage of 50 or 60 plus, you are probably doing back to back runs of 20 miles or more every weekend and require little if any recovery for that distance. Basically, the better your fitness level and the more miles that you have run, usually equates to quicker/better recovery periods for various distances. Better Base Fitness = Faster Recovery
Intensity
The second input is the intensity of the activity that you are recovering from. If you jog 10k as an EASY workout, it takes a very different toll on your body than if you raced a 10k as hard as you could, trying to achieve a PB. If you do a 25-mile long run, it has a very different impact on the body than a 10k training run. Runs with elevation are harder than runs that are flat. The list can go on and on, but the point is that the more intense the activity, the more recovery you may need. And I would be remiss to not once again highlight the link between base fitness and intensity. If your fitness level is high, you can push your intensity level up and still recover fairly quick and the opposite is true. If your fitness level is low you either need to lower your intensity level or you will need to recover longer after an intense effort.
Nutrition/Hydration
The third input is nutrition and hydration. If you are in a training cycle and have been eating clean, ensuring that you have sufficient complex carbs, and maintaining good levels of hydration, this will all help with a quicker and better recovery. Your body will have all of the calories and nutrients it needs to repair the damage from your effort. If your nutrition and hydration is less than optimal, it will not only have an impact on your performance, but on your recovery as well. I documented this in the post on “fitness interrupters” using myself as the guinea pig. I was amazed at how quickly my body responded to poor nutrition and lack of sleep while I was on vacation. Which brings us to my last input…
Rest
Getting sufficient rest before and after a run will facilitate a better and quicker recovery. To this day, this is still what I personally struggle with the most. Being a husband, father, runner, blogger, etc. means that I have to be disciplined to achieve this goal, and quite frankly, I am not always as disciplined here as I need to be. However, I speak from experience, and can assure you that when I sleep seven plus hours on average, I feel better during my runs as well as after them.
So, there you have it. These are the “inputs” in to your recovery needs. In some follow up posts I’ll speak to details around what I do to try and facilitate recovery specifically, but knowing these inputs is a great first step in to creating effective recovery plans. As for me, I plan on getting to bed early tonight so I can hit my goal of seven hours of sleep. Wait, it’s Monday night and Monday Night Football is on, hmmmm…
I hope that this post and this blog helps you achieve your dreams! To receive new post notifications, newsletters, and post previews, please SUBSCRIBE!
For behind the scenes photos and comments on my training and personal life, follow me on Instagram: joe_the_runner Strava: Joe Randene YouTube: Joe Runner
Questions, comments, feedback? Please leave them in the comments section BELOW and we can have a discussion!