Congratulations, you’ve finished a marathon!
Whether you want to know if you can start running again, or want to see if it’s OK to have a few extra days off, we’ve got the answer for you.
This is everything you need to know about when to start running again after a marathon.
Listen To Your Body
There are no rules about returning to running after a marathon, or any other race distance.
The best advice is to listen to your body and your mind and don’t run until you feel ready and able. That may be a couple of days for some people, or it may be a few weeks for others.
What The Body & Mind Feel Like After a Marathon
You just ran 26.2 miles! It’s an incredible physical feat, and it puts a large amount of stress on the body.
You’ll be extra tired for a few days. Your legs will be very sore, and walking down stairs will be particularly challenging. You might have some blisters or chafing. You may feel some brain fog, may get sick (sometimes known as ‘runner’s flu’), and once the excitement of finishing has diminished, you may even feel some sadness that it’s over. We all have a different post-marathon experience.
Here’s what happens to your body when you run a marathon.
Don’t Run The Day After a Marathon!
Even the pros take a day off after a race. You should take at least three days off from running, and take the whole week off if you want to.
But it’s definitely good to move the day after a marathon and do some active recovery. Go for a walk, a gentle cycle, a swim, do some light stretching or yoga. That’s going to increase your blood flow and get your muscles moving, and it’ll help to reduce the soreness.
The week after a marathon is the time for warm baths, sauna, a massage, light stretching or yoga, and just very easy active recovery which can help your recovery process. Also focus on activities that are good for you mentally. That could be journaling or creative tasks like drawing or building Lego – whatever works for you.
Returning To Running
When thinking about returning to running, you want to feel psychologically ready – don’t force yourself to run if you don’t want to.
You also need to feel physically ready. Your muscles are going to feel weak and damaged, which may take two weeks or more to properly recover. Many people tend to feel ready to run again around four to nine days after finishing a marathon.
As a minimum you should wait until the DOMS, or delayed onset muscle soreness, has gone from your legs before you consider running again. The DOMS may be covering some slight strains or injuries which you’ll want to take care of. When the muscle soreness has gone you may still have tired and heavy legs and it’s up to you whether you feel ready to run like that.
If you think you’re ready to run, then put on your comfiest trainers and aim for 15-30 minutes at a very easy pace. You could even do a walk-run approach on the first run back.
Your body may feel like it’s stiff and running awkwardly to begin, which can be strange: you just ran a marathon, you’re the fittest you’ve ever been, and yet you’re running like your legs have no coordination. That’s all normal, and it’ll feel easier again as you continue to run over the coming days and weeks, but beware of running with compromised form as it could lead to some niggles developing.
The important thing is to see how your body is feeling. If you’re experiencing more than just muscle tiredness then continue to rest (or do low impact active recovery) and focus on good hydration, nutrition and sleep.
If may take a few weeks or more before your legs and body feels ‘normal’ again. You may have heavy legs, tiredness and tightness in different places, and it could continue to feel a bit awkward, but it’ll come back eventually – just take it easy, and don’t rush.
When Can I Run FAST Again?
The only reason you should be asking this is if you’ve got another race coming up within 4-6 weeks of your marathon, otherwise take a few weeks to just run easy and build up your base mileage again. If you feel like you have an urge to run faster, then start by adding in a few strides before progressing.
When you feel ready to run faster again, start by building up from short reps. Try 10 x 1 minute faster with 1 minute walking in between. If that feels good, then increase the rep distance and intensity.
From three or four weeks post-marathon you may feel able to return to harder and longer workouts as part of a more structured training programme, but don’t try and force your body to get there before it’s ready or you may set your future training back.
How To Help Marathon Recovery
If you want to recover quicker then this begins before and during your run. You want to make sure you have a really good carb-load ahead of the race, you want to take in as much energy during the run as you can, and drink plenty of fluids. This will all hopefully help you to have a better race experience and finish without feeling fully depleted.
To further help your recovery, right after the race you want to rehydrate and consume some protein and carbs as soon as possible, then later, when you’re able to eat properly, have a full meal with lots of nutritious ingredients, including more protein and carbs.
Take a bath or shower to freshen up. Have a nap, then continue to walk around later that day to make sure your legs keep moving. Try to get a good sleep that night (but know that lots of runners feel restless the night after a marathon).
Fancy a post-race beer? Consuming alcohol will likely affect recovery, hydration and sleep, so perhaps consider something non-alcoholic right after a race.
Of course, if you just want to celebrate and eat and drink whatever you want, then you’ve earned it. Your legs will ache whatever you do after a marathon, just know that alcohol may slow down your recovery a little more than normal.
Feeling The Post-Marathon Blues?
This is a real thing, so if you find yourself feeling a little down after the race is over, then that’s normal and happens to a lot of us. You trained for months for the race, and it would’ve taken over a lot of your thoughts, and then it’s all over within a few hours. There’s a huge comedown from that.
Part of the blues comes from the event being over, and regardless of whether it went well for you or not, we’ll always think about how it could have gone better, or things you may have done differently over the race weekend. The marathon is not like a 5K, which you could race most weeks and try to make improvements; marathons take so much more time to build up, recover, then build again.
It can be helpful to think about all the things you learnt during your most recent marathon training, and work out how you might want to improve them for the next one.
Another aspect of these blues may come from the reduction in the feel-good chemicals that our bodies release during exercise, and the runner’s high. When we’re training for a marathon, we get a constant flow of those feel-goods, but now they’re gone. A gradual return to exercise can help alleviate those feelings, as can having other plans, like booking a holiday or seeing friends.
Looking For The Next Challenge?
At mile 22 you probably swore you’d never do this again, but in the hours or days after the race, you might start to think about what’s next.
Signing up for another event can help you to focus again, and to return to structured training. But one thing to avoid is signing up for another marathon within a few weeks, especially if you didn’t run the time you wanted. It can be tempting to try and piggy back your fitness right into another race, but it’s hard to bounce back and run hard right away – it’s possible, but not advisable. Give yourself the chance to recover, then come back even stronger next time.
Here’s Sarah with some great tips on how to recover after a marathon.
Image from Boston Athletic Association
