Recovery from first marathon - your thoughts?

[4571]

Hi all. I am running my first marathon in four weeks, and to avoid depression and general bumming out afterwards I'm doing some research around a recovery training programme now.

Info I haven;t been able to find a lot about online is how often you can restart weight training (ie. pump or circuit training) after the race?

I normally do 3 x weights workouts and 2 - 3x spin (resistance exercycle classes) per week and I was thinking if I just do one spin class the Friday after the race, and build up the weights classes again from week 1 (no weights) week 2 (1 class) week 3 (2 classes) and so on.....

Am i being too cautious/not cautious enough? I reckon a bit will depend on how i feel but i don;t want to loose the plot either!!!!!

Dani

[MikayP]

well as you said, everyone is different and you gotta listen to your body before getting back to serious training. dont be like me after a race ive trained really hard for i pig out on all the crap ive avoided eating for the month prior, (chips, cookies, vegan pizzas, etc.), it prolongs recovery and i feel like crap.

a thing that id suggest every marathoner, or even shorter distances, is to run roughly 20-30 minutes the morning after the race. very slow. the first 1/2 mile will feel terrible, but you may be smiling at the end cause youve loosened up so much. itll speed up your recovery a great amount

id say your plan getting back into weights/spinning is good for now. if anything the 2nd week id say you can do it twice, depending on how you feel of course. just not a lot of real hard intensity, but to get the blood flowing to the extremities. just no serious training for the first two weeks IMO.

good luck on the marathon!

[morg]

I generaly just have a complete weeks rest from any training following running a marathon, but then start back to my weights with the same weights I used before the marathon.
I take a bit longer to ease back into the running though

[Mr. Cleetus]

I'd agree with taking a complete week off of running. A spin or two is not necessarily a bad idea, but be careful in a spin class because it is pretty easy to get the intensity up during those, which will probably do you no good. Remember that you won't lose any fitness in that first week, but you could prolong your recovery by doing too much. I think your plan makes sense; just see how you feel and don't feel the need to over do it - keep all of your hard work for the marathon.

[ha]

So 4571, how was it and what did you learn?

I do a lot of cycling and found an easy week of riding is great recovery. It also depends on what your goals were for the marathon ie: running it as support of some less fit friends or aiming for a pb. Youll feel different the next days depending on how hard you went out.

Drink lots of water and carb up hard so your body is less stressed and wants to keep staying active. Biggest mistake I see as a personal trainer is people not eating drinking/enough AFTER training/races. They get caught up with work/family/tv or whatever and then miss out on the big carb feasts that are so important for recovery.

I ran a marathon on July 4th (gold coast- 3:33:33) and then another on August 1st (brisbane 3:48:44). I only did 28km of running between marathons so the August marathon I just jogged the first half and ran the last half and didnt injury anything!

I learnt in the gold coast marathon that I drank too much water at the start and ran a 1:28 first half and got a real bad stomach cramp and could only jog/walk the next half in 2:06.

Ive ran more this year than ever before and have learnt a stack with each race. Its great. But it would be really depressing if I didnt learn anything and kept making the same mistakes!