ou spent months preparing, including watching your diet, monitoring your hydration status, trying to get enough sleep, and logging what seemed to be endless miles on the road. Depending on how intensely you prepared and whether the marathon gods were kind, you may have notched a big, fat Personal Record. Or perhaps you were just able to add a finisher medal to your collection. In any case, CONGRATULATIONS . . . completing a marathon is a significant personal accomplishment!

After the discipline of training and the challenge of the marathon itself you are probably more than ready to take a break . . . but not so fast. Your marathon does not really end when you cross the finish line on race day. What you do in the time period following your marathon will determine how well you recover and when you can move on to your next athletic goal. For that reason, you should consider the post marathon time period as part of your training . . . one that must be executed correctly in order to truly and properly complete your marathon.

People take a wide variety of approaches to the post marathon time period. There are some who will start it off with an easy 20 miler the day after the race. Others will spend the day following the marathon at home in bed, trying to remain very, very still in hopes of not annoying various extremely stressed body parts into a painful response. If you prepared for your marathon thoroughly and stayed within the limits of your training on race day, you probably felt great the day after the marathon and would lean towards the former approach. If your preparations were not so thorough and/or you over did it on race day, you would undoubtedly prefer the latter. But neither of these extreme approaches is likely to be best for you, regardless of how you feel.

There is no single post marathon recovery approach or schedule that will work optimally for everyone or even work optimally for the same person following different marathons. But there are some basic principles that you can use to create your own personal post marathon recovery plan. Your objective for the recovery period is to heal any problems that may have been created during the marathon and avoid injury so that you are ready to move on to your next athletic conquest.

Get your Body Moving!

The first principle is MOVE THOSE PARTS. During healing the body has a tendency to go a bit overboard and adhere adjacent structures together while it is doing its repairs. The problems that result depend upon what is adhered to what and you will be stuck with them until those adhesions are removed and the structures can move independently of one another again.

You can inhibit the development of adhesions by simply moving your body through a full range of motion frequently during the recovery period. Yoga or old fashioned static stretching will do the trick, though you do want to wait until all soreness and stiffness have gone away before starting these. Stretching injured muscles and tendons will interfere with healing and can worsen the injury. When you are ready to begin be sure to stretch your entire body and not just your legs. A word of caution; people can and do injure themselves doing yoga or stretching, even if they have not recently completed a marathon. This happens if they become overly aggressive and press too hard into a pose or stretch. Try for as full a range of motion as possible, but pay attention to and respect your body’s limits.

Get your Blood Moving!

Principle number 2 is CIRCULATE. With any renovation project, the old stuff has to be carried out and the new stuff carried in. Your circulatory system does the carrying of stuff throughout your body, so it will be helpful if you can increase your circulation regularly during the recovery period. Exercise is a good way to do that, but there are some important considerations following a marathon.

During the first week after a marathon you should focus on NO impact exercise because your joints and muscles do not need more impact stress. Swimming, biking and other no impact activities will fill the bill. Low impact exercise and even running can be gradually resumed over the recovery period after the first week. Regardless of the type of exercise keep the intensity down and don’t do anything hard or long during the recovery period. Your goal is to increase your circulation without stressing your body. Frequent, short, low intensity exercise will do that.

Tank Up!

The next principle is SUPPLY THE SUPPLIES. Plenty of water helps the body flush out wastes, making the kidneys’ job easier, and a varied, healthy diet provides the raw materials for the body’s repairs. Healthy hydration and eating habits are essential in the recovery period.

Get More Sleep!

Another principle is SAW THAT WOOD. Vital body processes occur during sleep, including those involved in healing. During the recovery period you should get to bed early and wake up late enough to allow for an adequate amount of sound sleep.

Not Too Soon!

One final principle is DON’T FALSE START. Athletes are used to gauging their effort during workouts and races by how they feel. If you were to use that approach to determine when you can resume the intensity after a marathon, i.e. do hard speedwork, race or go long, you would definitely jump the gun. The stiffness, discomfort and sense of fatigue following a marathon disappear before the body’s repair work is complete. You may feel great, but you are still susceptible to injury and raising the intensity too soon will result in injury.

The length of the post marathon recovery period can vary from as little as 3 weeks to 4 weeks, 6 weeks, or even more. There is no definitive formula for setting how long it should be, but here is an approach you can use for guidance. Each week on the same day of the week as your marathon, honestly answer the following self-assessment questions. 1) Have the post marathon stiffness and discomfort completely gone away? 2) Can I move my body through the same range of motion today as before the marathon? 3) Has my appetite returned to relative normalcy, i.e. I’m no longer ravenous? 4) Has the post marathon sense of fatigue completely gone away?

On the day you can answer YES to all of those questions with complete honesty, you can plan for an intense workout or race in 1 or 2 weeks. The body’s healing processes slow down as you age, so if you are in your early 30’s or younger, 1 week is probably sufficient. Runners in their mid 30’s and up, younger runners who scored themselves all YESes one week after their marathon, or anyone who wants to be conservative should allow 2 weeks.