How long can you maintain base fitness after a long race (Half, Full, 30k , ultra?). I know you are supposed to take time off after a huge race to recover, but you don't want to lose base fitness. Is a week enough time if you are feeling good otherwise? (Starting off with EZ running, of course, no workouts right away, etc.). Or should it be more like 3-4 weeks post-race?
I'm assuming for shorter races like 5k-10k you can go back to base-building quickly (a few days).
Edit to say 50k, not 30k, I'm tired lol
I'm hoping a month. I am training to run New York, got an injury and missed about a week, then basically doing maintenance training until the race which is 2.5 weeks away. I think I was pretty much ready to race a good marathon when the injury happened, so I'm hoping I can maintain that fitness or close enough to it. I know in the past I was doing big training in August/September, then got an injury first week of October. Didn't really do much training the next few weeks and still had a really big race roughly October 30th that went better than I could've imagined. So I know fitness lasts at least a few weeks.
I hope a month wrote:
I'm hoping a month. I am training to run New York, got an injury and missed about a week, then basically doing maintenance training until the race which is 2.5 weeks away. I think I was pretty much ready to race a good marathon when the injury happened, so I'm hoping I can maintain that fitness or close enough to it. I know in the past I was doing big training in August/September, then got an injury first week of October. Didn't really do much training the next few weeks and still had a really big race roughly October 30th that went better than I could've imagined. So I know fitness lasts at least a few weeks.
Thank you! This thread is useful.
I'll take a few days off and build back soon.
Waiting to initially run but doing cross training would allow for a significant portion of aerobic fitness to be maintained while giving your body a chance to recover from the associated impact stress of running. After running a long race, take 1-2 weeks off from running and instead do a low impact activity such as swimming, biking, XC skiing and/or using the elliptical. Mileage following this period of no running such be slowly increased, as cross training is graduatly replaced with running.
Good point, I feel great today and want to run but I'm having do everything I can NOT to run this week. My next marathon is in February. But I'd rather play it safe and just do EZ runs to build up the base again.
Will you lose a ton just having no running for a week?