I just ran my first marathon on 1/29. Today, ten days later, I still feel really messed up. Normally I run to work 5 miles, and this morning I had to stop at mile 4 because my left knee started tightning up and hurting badly. I never get injured, and now I feel like I've wronged my legs to such a degree I'm not sure they'll ever be the same.
There's a general rule that it takes 1 day for every mile you race to fully recover. It seems to work. I've only run 2 marathons so far. My second was Houston this year (1/15), so I still feel like I'm in the process of recovery. Run by feel. Some people recover more quickly than others. Be careful with anything that feels like an injury coming on because this is a good time for that to happen.
About 8 hours or so.
Four weeks
Two weeks completely off
One week low volume easy running
One week medium volume easy running
You cant go wrong with this
txRUNNERgirl wrote:
There's a general rule that it takes 1 day for every mile you race to fully recover.
Really? I've done a 10k/5k double within 24 hours at conference meets and it has taken me nowhere near 9 days to recover...
I think the one day for every mile recommendation is a bit overkill.
Big Day is Nearing wrote:
txRUNNERgirl wrote:There's a general rule that it takes 1 day for every mile you race to fully recover.
Really? I've done a 10k/5k double within 24 hours at conference meets and it has taken me nowhere near 9 days to recover...
Sure, and some people run marathons every weekend. Like I said, it's a "general" rule. Recovery doesn't mean taking the 9 days off, but I don't think you could be in peak performance for another conference-type meet within that time frame. If you don't believe me, check back in with us after you graduate. As far as the 2 races you ran within 24 hours, do you think you would have run faster if you just raced one that day? Just because you don't feel completely beat up, doesn't mean you're fully recovered enough to run your absolute fastest.
It took me 3 days before my first recovery run. Took a day off after that. Same pattern for the next week. Three days on and two days off for another two weeks. Six days on day off after. Eight weeks total before I added workouts. I was over 40.
Emotionally, it took three years.
Never, I was never the same after.
Ran my first marathon sophomore year in high school, broke 3 by a decent amount. I was doing light speed later that week, PRd in the 10k 13 days later.
I have a theory on marathon recovery.... calculate your average training pace, compare it to your actual marathon pace. if its greater than 1:45 min/mile difference, you are going to get wrecked by the marathon. the closer your training pace is to your marathon pace the less sore you feel
It took me four days before I felt reasonably comfortable walking down steps.
was dehydrated for two weeks
about five days i could walk again
a month maybe fully recovered
LOL @Messed me up
I saw my applied kinesiologist yesterday and she said she doesn't believe the pain is related to cartilage or the ACL, which is a good thing. She thinks it's just two muscles that are weak and which are supposed to stabilize the knee. Whatever she did to me, it helped a lot in terms of function but the pain is still there (albeit less so). I don't think I'll be running the marathon again, seriously. Nothing wrong with running 5ks, 10ks, and halfs.
2-3 weeks, with running, NOT time off. If you stop running completely it will take you longer to fully recover.
couldn't walk normal for four days. after that, I could run but probably two weeks before I was back to normal running effort. However, my long run prior to marathon was 15, I was only averaging 35 per week, and I didn't just jog the race. So probably not representative. Most people should recover much quicker if better prepared than me milewise.
I took 5 days off after my first marathon and then jogged easy for another week. It was still another week after that of easy pace running before I felt 100% back to normal. So ~3 weeks for me.
on how hard you ran it, or what your training was prior to the race and how many miles you had put in. For me, from the time of my first marathon to my recent one, I have recovered much better/quicker now than my first.
At age 44, I raced a 5K XC race 6 days after my first marathon and set my PR for the course. I then raced an 8K road race 8 days after that and ran a "McMillan equivalent time" only about 2s slower than my 5K road PR. Of course 5 days after that I got a metatarsal stress fracture but still, the marathon didn't seem to hurt my race times!