How To Recover From Running A Marathon

Recovery starts before you start your race with proper planning.

Make sure you'll have access to the post race fluids and food you'll need immediately after finishing. 

Although there are many commercial post exercise products to consume, healthy whole foods work just fine. 

Be mindful of consuming too much fluid after the race. I assisted in a study on runners in the 2005 Manitoba Marathon and we found that some runners over consumed fluids after the race, which can cause hyponatremia; too much fluid intake dilutes sodium levels which in turn can cause the brain to swell, which could result in death (a nasty side effect).

About 500 to 750 ml of carb + electrolyte drink consumed within the first 10-30 minutes after finishing is enough. 

You're looking to match your post race weight with your pre-race weight as a guide to how much fluid replacement you need. It's ok to take a few hours to make up any difference. 

Trying to replace your fluids lost in race too quickly in large amounts (2 or more liters within 1-2 hous) is where the greatest risk of hyponatremia is. 

Overhydrating is less common than under hydrating; being mindful both risks is important. 

Another litre of fluids over the next three hours is a good idea especially after a hot marathon. 

A quick mild stretch after the run can help prevent tightening up, but isn't 100% necessary. 

It's best to head home, shower, and kick back on the couch as soon as possible. 

It's best to avoid alcohol after the run as studies show booze after physical activity impairs recovery. 

Studies show that the less fit you are entering the marathon the more damage to your body there is.  Part of managing your post marathon recovery is proper preparation. Many people suffer unnecessarily after a marathon by pushing too far beyond their current abilities or from getting caught up in the attraction of the marathon challenge when they're not ready for it. 

In general it takes around 3-4 weeks to recover physically and emotionally from a marathon. 

Physically, blood markers of muscle damage return to normal within 3 to 7 days post marathon, and the leg muscles ability to contract normally again occurs between 4 to 14 days after the long run. 

No running for the first 4-5 days is a good strategy for maximizing recovery. 

See a registered massage therapist for trigger point work or even for a relaxation massage.. Your body deserves it!

Non-weight bearing exercise like swimming, cycling, or roller blading is a good idea for your first couple times returning to regular cardio. 

There's no need for intensity yet, or going long. Don't worry about losing fitness from not getting back at it for a couple weeks.. You won't lose any fitness with a week or two off, and the recovery process will improve your fitness. 

Between somewhere around end of the first and fourth week post marathon, very gradually increase the duration of runs and think about intensity 3-4 weeks post. 

You won't need any more than 1-3 runs per week in the month following a marathon and many people do well with no running with 2-4 weeks after. 

Watch your resting heart rate every day after the marathon and definitely avoid training if resting heart rate is still elevated.  

There is variability between people for when it's best for them to start getting back to regular running. About half the population is more tolerant to more training, with the other half being less tolerant. These high and low volume responders need to be mindful of their individual needs and avoid feeling compelled to start running again just because somebody else already has. 

Avoid peer pressure to push too soon. 

Take the time you need get back to normal and you'll be back to enjoying running healthy again. 

Muscle Pain and Fatigue from Exercise Makes you Clumsy

This may be another one of those "Duh!" scenarios where research proves the obvious like, "study shows placing hand on hot stove causes burns".


Nevertheless, much of the time we don't make the practical application connection to things that we usually ignore, and for exercise management, fatigue is often viewed as something to conquer by pushing through it rather than resolving through rest, or perhaps by putting a piece of tape on your muscles.


DOMS; delayed onset muscle soreness.. your muscles feel stiff and sore in the days following exercise.   A study in the journal Medicine & Science In Sports & Exercise (1) showed that 48 hours after training muscles with DOMS had a strength reduction of about 21%.  While this has training implications (do you need to rest until you return to full strength before considering training again?), there was another interesting finding.


The study concluded, "Reflex activity in leg muscles elicited by rapid destabilizing perturbations is reduced after exercise-induced muscle soreness."


Translation, you will have less functional stability.  Your ability to respond to high stability demands like playing sports will be reduced, which would increase your risk of injury.


While recovery days can include light or moderate exercise, it's not a good idea to train hard with weights, then play hard in sports the next day.


In another study, this time from the journal Gate and Posture (2), researchers found placing a piece of tape on the ankle of fatigued study subjects allowed them to maintain ankle control.  When no tape was applied, fatigued subjects demonstrated "degraded postural performance", they lost balance more easily. 


How does this work?  Researchers suggest that local muscle fatigue impairs the ability to send relevant postural position information to the brain, and that the skin, if stimulated, can take up the communication corridor slack. 


Does this mean we should keep training and simply tape up our skin to maintain coordinated movement?  I wouldn't go that far.  There is still muscle recovery that requires more time to recover from, and there might be a problem with masking reduced coordination as it may prompt people to train weak and unrecovered muscles, but this information can help therapists and coaches understand and design appropriate recovery protocols. 


(1) Delayed-Onset Muscle Soreness Alters the Response to Postura... : Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise


(2) Degraded postural performance after muscle fatigue can be compensated by skin stimulation

Spring and Summer Are On The Way; Hello Exercise Injuries

Ahh spring.. Birds singing, fresh air that doesn't freeze your face off, the sweet sound of snapping tendons, and cry's of agony from athletes sustaining muscle injuries.

While most Canadians, in fact most people around the entire globe, don't exercise much, there is still a small steady growth in people who do exercise who are starting to get more interested in taking their fitness to a higher level.

Whether a high school or university athlete or a 30 to 60 something recreational athlete, more of the active crowd are taking part in more demanding exercises. Which is great.  It feels really rewarding to experience the fitness gains from high performance training.

For the general exerciser, spring and summer see more physical activity than winter.

In Canada leisure-time physical activity is 86% more likely in the summer than in the winter. (1)

My most difficult challenge as a coach is not getting sports enthusiasts and athletes to put time into training, the challenge is getting them to recognize when to go easier and placing importance on mastering the basics, avoiding overreaching, and injury prevention.

Here are some interesting stats:

• High school students who play sports all year long have a 42% increase risk of overuse injury, and potentially had the greatest reduction in injury risk by taking one season completely off from sports each year. (2)

• 1st year college/ university swimmers were more likely to become injured than later year college/ university swimmers. The reason is thought to be too rapid of a transition to more demanding training and competition. (3)

• Pro rugby players have significantly more injuries when they did more strength training or more field training. (4)

• Overuse (training too much) accounted for 68% of preseason and 78% of competition season injuries in triathletes (5), and a training volume of around 8-10 hours per week seemed to be associated with fewer injuries compared to greater or fewer training hours for triathletes (6). 

This spring, whatever activity you're into, put a lot of that enthusiasm into easy and progressive basic training.  It's a slow start, but if we can learn to associate the reward of greater future performance, we can really connect with the value of a progressive long term plan.  Go easy now so can you can go harder later, when it means more.

Muscle strength imbalances are very common, and cause plenty of performance and movement impairments.  These strength imbalances are insidious; we don't really feel them, and most people don't really know what they are and are aloof to these gremlins doing dirty deeds affecting hip mechanics, core stability, and muscle coordination.

The first step is getting assessed.  Look for a coach or trainer who knows how to do a movement screen or basic technique analyses.  They'll run you through a series of movement challenges to look for knees going the wrong way, lumbar and pelvis instability, and poor movement patterns due to either strength imbalances, old bad habits, old injuries, or insufficient range of motion (inflexibility).

Your exercise plan will then be built on the results of these tests with the goal of progressing you from the prehab/ rehab stage, to full on performance training.  Be ready to devote up to 8 months or more to this process before really hitting training hard on all cylinders.

Yes, 8 months or more.  I know.. I just lost 95% of people who may have been buying into this.

"I don't have 8 months.  The season starts in 8 weeks".  The only real response I can provide that has any resonance or reason are the research results I've linked here.  They all demonstrate that training too much too soon results in injury, and that more focus should be placed on building gradually as performance allows.

We've developed a consumer mentality towards increasing performance.  We think we can demand someone sell us a program that supplants the longer path to performance with a short cut.  We're so accustom to this we now think the short cuts are the real deal and the idea of long term gains is an uninformed concept.  The thing is we can't apply our consumer demands to our DNA or our cells biological processes that dictate adaptation to exercise.

We can use our consumer power to get a lower price for buying more volume, or even go high end and demand a product be custom made to our ideal demands. But that only works for things that can be easily formed the way we want.  Human biology on other hand is what it is.  You can't lay down $100.00 and expect muscle cells to absorb the money and subsequently get bigger or stronger.

You could argue that for dopers this is sort of how it works; they buy illegal drugs that do manipulate the natural response to exercise.  But for the rest of us it's up to us learn the natural capacity of our bodies to respond to exercise then model our exercise based on that understanding.  We have to be humble enough to accept that this is the way it is, and also disciplined and excited enough to reap the benefits of the long term approach.

There is a limited sweet spot for training intensity and progress that our cells can respond to.  Go beyond that, and we're simply exceeding our cells ability to adapt and no matter how loud a trainer yells at your muscles, or how much you paid for the latest training gimmick, it won't do a damn thing.

Let's step back from that and tune into how fit we really are or aren't, learn about our specific strengths and weaknesses, and follow a long term injury and overuse resistant program.

I've seen it over and over: six to eight months of correcting muscle imbalances and getting back to basics catapults a persons following seasons to a higher level of performance.  Nothing motivates like success and once we get passed this current trend of over-doing it and experience the success that comes with healthy long term exercise plans, more of us will be motivated to take it easy more often.

Taking it easy when it counts is what allows us to maximize performance when it counts.


1. Seasonal variation in leisure-time physical activi... [Can J Public Health. 2007 May-Jun] - PubMed result

2. Overuse injuries in high school athletes. [Clin Pediatr (Phila). 2010] - PubMed result

3. Injury patterns in Division I collegiate swimming. [Am J Sports Med. 2009] - PubMed result

4.  Relationship between training load and injury in p... [J Sci Med Sport. 2011] - PubMed result

5. Factors associated with triathlon-related overuse ... [J Orthop Sports Phys Ther. 2003] - PubMed result

6. Training patterns and sports injuries in triathlet... [J Sci Med Sport. 2004] - PubMed result