Off-time after marathon

Well you probably could start very light running a few days after, but I would wait about a week. You could maybe do the ultra around a month after the marathon.

MaryMid wrote:

I'm running a marathon in November this year.

No you're not.

Can I borrow your time machine?

***this upcoming year

I like to get an easy couple of miles in the day after a marathon to help loosen the legs up then follow that with the elliptical the next day.

If you take it easy the week after and just go into a maintenance running mode you can do a 50k a couple of weeks later. I would treat it as a long run not a race.

3 weeks

1St week very light jogging.

2Nd week avg pace runs

3Rd week taper

Any shorter you won't be recovered.

Any longer you will need to do training runs.

MaryMid wrote:

I'm running a marathon in November this year. How long after an all out marathon would I be able to resume light training and run a sub-maximal ultra? I'm wanting to run under 2:40 for the marathon, and I'm not too worried about pace for the ultra. I'm just wanting to run while I'm coming down off my peak

After many marathons I finally found I need to take more time off than is usually recommended. I usually did what some recommend here, basically a reverse taper. Seemed to always have some nagging issue that didn't let me train optimally.

Now I take a full 2 weeks off with only walking/light exercise before I run again. I come back faster and so far no injuries. Find what works for you, imo most start back too soon and too fast. It takes about 2 weeks for much of the damage to heal so let it be. If you are in 2:40 shape and just want to run an ultra and not take chances on a big injury, then I highly recommend the 2 weeks off, then reverse taper, possible training cycle, race. You can skip the training cycle and run the ultra 6 weeks after the marathon.