Time Off After Goal Race

Time Off After Goal Race

Blake Preece PT

Fit For Life Physical Therapy

Congratulations!  You’ve completed that race that you’ve been training for.  What’s next?  After completing your goal race, be it a marathon, ultra, or half marathon, it is important to give your body the rest that it needs.  Some may worry about losing their developed fitness during this time, but the benefits obtained from time off often outweigh the cons.  Each individual responds differently to training loads and with that, your post-race recovery should be unique to you too.  To further understand the importance of rest after racing, let’s look at what happens to the body after completing long distance races.

One study looked at runners and changes in skeletal muscle, liver metabolism, and kidney function following completion of either a marathon, 100-kilometer ultramarathon, or a 308-kilometer ultramarathon.  This study found that after all these races, creatinine kinase (CK), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine transaminase (ALT), blood urea nitrogen (BUN), and creatinine were found to be significantly increased compared with values obtained before the race.  This is indicative that muscular damage, decline in liver function, and rupture of blood cells were all found in runners after racing these long distances.

With this in mind, we would like to stress the importance of adequate rest and recovery following long distance races.  You’ve worked for months for your race and have run a load of miles in the process.  After your race is the time to take some days off from running to let things heal.  We recommend taking anywhere from 7-14 days off from running.  Fitness will decrease some, but usually not as much or as fast as you might expect, because many of the physiological benefits that have been earned during regular training are rather slow to go away.  Maximal aerobic capacity, or VO2 max, which is considered the gold standard for assessing one’s cardiorespiratory fitness, only shows mild deficits with brief training breaks.  After two weeks completely off running or walking, those drops in fitness happen more quickly, but anything less will not see much loss in fitness.

During your time off from running, you can take light walks or cross train to scratch that itch to run.  Biking, swimming, or using the elliptical are some cross training methods that can allow you to get a good workout but help avoid the impact that occurs when running.  You can also perform gentle stretching and mobility exercises.  Compression socks, massage guns, and stick rollers are some of the many tools that can be utilized to help one recover after racing.  NormaTec compression boots can also aid in accelerating recovery after running.

For further education regarding best recovery methods, please reach out to us at Fit For Life Physical Therapy.  We specialize in treating active people, just like you and can help you get back to what you love to do so that you can reach those running & walking goals.

Please visit our website https://www.fitforlifephysicaltherapy.com/, email us at info@fitforlifephysicaltherapy.com, or call or text us at any of the phone numbers for our three convenient locations inside Fleet Feet stores:

Polaris:  1270 East Powell Road Lewis Center, Ohio 43035 ~ 614-981-2065

Upper Arlington:  1344 West Lane Avenue, Columbus, Ohio 43221 ~ 614-981-1979

New Albany:  5792 North Hamilton Road, Columbus, Ohio 43230 ~ 614-581-7441