For many runners, today represents the day after the big race. Locally, here in Sacramento, many of our Be Change runners ran Saturday in the Way Too Cool 50k. Yesterday, a whole slew of runners ran the Shamrock Half Marathon. Regardless of distance, anything over a half marathon requires some recovery strategy. Sedentary post race sulking won’t get work. All of the below are under the assumption, you iced quickly post race. (IE: Ice Bath, Acute Ice Stick, Ice Packs, etc)
Here are three tips to consider.
1. Assess Your Body
Seated or standing flew your lower body. Flexing your legs and buttocks will help identify areas of soreness. Ice there again. An ice bath on Day 2 post run will help lessen any stored up swelling.
2. Run ASAP
Your body wants to sit around, but your legs need to get moving. Ironically, the only things that will make your body feel better is a run, or should I say, some type of movement. Lactic acid has built up in the muscles and movement causes blood flow to increase to the muscles that are broken down. A blood rush will flush the lactic acid into the circulatory system and help minimize soreness. Get moving. Two miles slow that mix jog, walk, jog.
3. Search Out Your Next Race
To avoid post-race mental meltdown, start searching for your next race. Get online and register for something of equal or longer distance in the next 30 days. Yes its possible. Continue to build on your running plan. Take the distance you ran and insert that into an equivalent running plan that has that distance as the long training run. If you did a half marathon, use the 13 as the long run of an 18 week training plan for a 26 miler. If you did a 50k, that was a 31 mile training run as you ramp up for a 50 miler.
Remember the best is yet to come.
Recap: Ice, Assess, Run, Register, Repeat.
JAS
