I also started a thread at coolrunning: Marathon Recovery.
Hal Higdon, as well as others, suggest one rest day for every mile you run in the marathon. That is, 26 days of no hard running or races. The reason behind this: it takes over three weeks to recover and returning too quickly to training will increase the risk of injury. He also says that the training you do in the three weeks following a marathon should be a near mirror of what you did the last three weeks before: in other words, a reverse taper.
Do people agree with this? What has been your experience? I think it took me a surprisingly long 6 weeks to fully recover from from my first marathon (Canberra 06) i.e. until I really felt my legs were fresh and light. This surprised me greatly. It took less than that in my second marathon (probably about 3-4 weeks). This week (post sixfoot) my training has been good and the legs feel surprisingly fresh. I am chomping at the bit to get back into it. I really want get into the faster stuff in prep for Sydney Half (only 9 weeks away) however don't want to push it too early.
I notice that a few people seem to be able to continue their training where they left off pre marathon. I heard a story this week where a good runner post sixfoot has done two strong speed sessions already this week.
What does your training look like after a marathon?
Anyway, I'm taking it easy and will try this reverse taper thing. Ended up doing 37k for the week, which surprisingly was the same k's I did the week before last. No cycling - doh! It is hard to get those tight pants on when you haven't for a while.
Friday was the last day I had to enter Canberra at cheap rates and I didn't enter. I am probably leaning toward giving it a miss at this stage. I think I will focus on SMH and try and get under sub 89. I am talking sub 89 and not sub 90 as I will end up getting 90:02 or something ;-(
Looking forward to doing some faster sessions anyway and building on the sixfoot base.
7 comments:
Bah! Hal who?
Last week i did about 8km but like you i have eaten heaps!
I promised my wife i would put on weight ( I think i have fulfilled that promise now?)
It was a lack of motivation for the first few days...now i am thinking of future goals and the 40min 10km may have to go.But first 18:45 for 5k.
Cheers R2B
Sensible approach Chris, hey if you are not running Canberra, no worries, concentrate on sharpening up again and let hell loose at SMH, 89 mins should be within your reach. Get some biking in too, reminds me I see the bastards have cut my M2 ride now.
See you out there mate.
Gee - and all this time I though a reverse taper was when you injure yourself a couple of months out from a race, and then try and cram in a couple of long runs in the last fortnight ... I need to go and get more taper-lessons from Tess I think (Tess is the undisputed taper-queen).
I'd certainly be taking it pretty easy mate - and really it seems to be the perfect time to kick-start some cycling. It'll be easy on the legs and give yourself a great recovery.
brilliant idea with the SMH time strategy too I think ;)
I favour Fats's formula ;-)
Nice work showing restraint.
Uncharted territory for me so no tips here!
Be good to see you up here next weekend. My only run then is Sat 5.30am 28km long run, but you're probably driving up that day. Apart from that just an easy 30min recovery run on monday morning.
If not will see you at some stage on the weekend if you make it up.
Thanks for the comment Hamburglar. I posted a reply a while back regarding some things to take into account post marathon on CR. Let me know when you plan to do the ironman.
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