Recovery Game
This past Sunday, I ran my fourth Boston Marathon, albeit virtually since well, we all know why at this point. I was crazy happy to have lots of family and friends provide support on the back half of my course when I needed it most and even more elated to have a bigger crew of folks to cheer me on as a crossed the finish line. After I thanked everyone, I laid down in the grass mad tired and beat from banging out 26.2 miles. My stepdad, always one of my biggest supporters, a great motivator and despite not being a runner, knows a thing or two came over to me and said, “You know you need to get up and walk around or else you’re gonna feel worse.” He was right! Despite having run quite a few marathons, in the moment, I forgot that one simple golden rule of finishing your race, keep moving! So I thought this may be a great time to offer some tips on how to properly recover after your race from the moment you cross the finish line.
After you cross the finish line: Congratulations! You finished! Grab your medal and keep upright and walking. There’s a reason for those long finish line gauntlets – it’s to keep you moving and prevent you from passing out from the fatigue and sudden stopping from the distance of the race. As you amble along, grab the water and electrolytes that volunteers hand out to you and drink them! More than likely, you’re at least slightly dehydrated and your body could use the replenishment of potassium, magnesium and sodium. Also, if you’re given bananas, bagels, oranges and the like, grab your share (don’t be greedy) and chew on them. The simple calories will hit your system fast and give you the extra energy you need to take your victory lap. If you’re like me, food doesn’t do well in the immediacy of finishing a race, so nibble away at them as best you can and let your body dictate how much you can take in without feeling nauseous. When you’re running hard, your body tends to shut down unnecessary functions to focus on the main task – your race. So it takes time for your body to reset and get back to doing other things, like digesting food.
Within 60-90 minutes of finishing: By now, you’ve ideally done all of the above and are either in the beer garden finishing up the victory beers or back home or in your hotel room. Within this timeframe, your body is most receptive to absorbing much needed protein into your muscles to aid in the recovery process. If possible, liquid protein options are best, as they absorb into your bloodstream more quickly than solids that need to be digested and broken down. Protein shakes and drinks, like Ensure or Isopure, or chocolate milk (yes, chocolate milk! It’s scientifically proven!) are all dope options. If you prefer solid proteins, easy to digest foods like eggs are great to eat. Again, ingest as much as your body can tolerate at the moment. For me, I can typically drink my proteins within this time frame without feeling sick and save the devouring of solid foods for later in the day after I’m showered, napped and ready to celebrate in the evening.
This leads me to the next part which is how you help your muscles recover. Your legs are trashed more than anything else so it’s important to focus on them. Elevating your legs over your head is clutch in helping with getting the overload of blood flow running out of them and back into the rest of your body. To help with the soreness I highly recommend that you take an ice bath and/or throw on compression pants. Not gonna lie, sitting waist deep in a tub of ice sucks. But it is very effective in helping your legs recover by reducing the inflammation, tissue breakdown and more from your legs. 15 – 20 minutes is all you need and trust, it’s plenty of time. Once you settle into the cold, it feels refreshing and you can literally feel the heat coming off your legs in the icy cold water. Don’t feel like living the life of a polar bear? Try rocking some compression pants for a few hours. Without freezing your buns off, compression pants reduce the swelling in your legs from running. I’ve found that wearing them after my tougher races does alleviate the discomfort post race and feels like a nice exo-skeleton to give me extra support to not walk around like a new born deer.
The next day: You might feel like a truck hit you and that’s okay! That means you pushed it hard. Though it feels completely counter-intuitive, heading out for a solid walk or easy run is in order. You’ll have a ton of lactic acid built up in your legs from your marathon, so that lower leg movement is key in helping to flush that from your body. You should also break out the foam roller and/or therapy gun to help soothe the achy muscles. Slowly and steady like a steamroller over the bumps in your legs! If you nose scrunches up in discomfort, you’re doing it right. If you’ve ever had a hard workout day in the gym, you know that it’s typically the second day afterwards that you feel the worse. That’s called DOMS or Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness. You ran a marathon, so you definitely tore down the muscle fibers in your body on a microscopic level and DOMS is the result. By walking/jogging and foam rolling the legs, you’ll aid helping lessen the severity of DOMS.
Congratulations on crushing your marathon! You deserve to puff your chest out a bit with your medal hanging around your neck and bask in the glory that only one percent of the population get to do. Doing all of these simple, effective recovery efforts will ensure that you can thoroughly enjoy it and possibly want to sign up for another one.
