Now you must be having problems going up and down stairs, walking fast, whole body is aching and feels really beat up.  Here are some tips to help you with a speedy recovery because I know you want to get back out there running your heart out.  On average it will take 2-3 weeks after the marathon to fully recover.

5 Recovery Tips The Minute You Cross The Finish Line

1. Start walking.  Walk 10-15 minutes to get your legs and breathing back to normal.  It will be painful, but continue to walk throughout the day for 15 minutes.
2. Refuel muscles with meals that include carbs, protein and sodium.  For example, you can eat peanut butter sandwich, banana and gatorade.   If you cannot eat after a race, you can opt for recovery drinks such as Hammer RECOVERITE, CLIF SHOT Recovery, PowerBar Recovery, V8, chocolate milk; most available at your local grocery store.  Check out other Recovery drinks available.
3. Drink lots of water.
4. To reduce the inflammation soak your legs in tub of cold ice water or shower your legs with cold water.  Another option to reduce inflammation in your legs is to go for a soothing salt bath.
5. Sleep and get lots of rest.
   

Recovery Tips for Day After Your Marathon

1. Go for a massage or see the chiropractor.
2. There are products such as The Marathon Stick and Foam Rollers that allow you to do deep tissue massages for hamstrings, calves, thighs and hips yourself.
3. Do light hamstring and calve stretches to loosen your muscles.  Wear comfortable shoes, your feet will be sore.
4. Eat enough for recovery but try not to eat too much to gain unnecessary weight.

Recovery Tips Days After Running Your Marathon

1. The worse thing you can do for marathon recovery is to stop exercising.  A few days after your marathon should be an active resting period, but there should be no running.
2. Consider doing low impact exercises such as yoga, biking, walking or swimming which are great to keep your legs an body moving.
3. After week of active resting, you can start to reverse taper your marathon regime.
4. Start off slow and short and gradually get your legs, lungs and brain ready for another season of running.  If you start to feel pain in your legs or knees, stop and rest.  Keep your running intensity low for at least three weeks.

Giving your body adequate time to heal is best way for recovery and prevent long term injuries in the future.  Remember to always have fun and enjoy your downtime.

Related Running Tips:

1. What to eat before a race
2. What to eat for post race recovery
3. Beginners Guide – How to get started

Being inactive for a period of time will naturally reduce your cardio ability but there is no real formula to tell you how much exactly.  If you were extremely active prior to being sick you will probably recover faster than a beginner who’s only been running for a few weeks.   So it depends on these three main areas:

1. How active you were prior to being sick.
2. Length of your sickness.
3. Did you do any cross training while you were sick (not really recommended).

When you return to running it will be hard at first.  Your leg muscles and lungs will be the first to get tired.  It was tough for me initially to get back into the routine.   Your Heart Rate during the first few runs will peak higher than normal.  Run at a lower intensity and not at your normal running pace and your strength will return after about a week.  If you normally train at  6-8 miles a run, don’t be discouraged if you can’t quite make it.  Build up your base mileage again and then you can get back into the running groove.

How to Recover Your Running Speed

1. Build up your base mileage again back to what it was prior to your sickness.  Keep the intensity low but run longer.
2. Run slow so your legs get used to the impact of running and builds up the muscles in your legs again to sustain longer runs.
3. Every week try to run 10 minutes at or above your max threshold.  Push yourself to go faster.

Related Running Tips:

1. Marathon Training – Adding Mileage Safely
2. Training for the NYC Marathon
3. Beginners Half Marathon Training

The Causes

The causes of the pain under your toes is a combination of factors.  The way your feet hit the ground while running, the surface you run on, the running shoes you run with or lastly you might just have really boney feet with no padding which is not your fault.  At least a part of your body that you can complain is too skinny.  These pains usually surface after you’ve either increased your mileage or started doing more speed or hill work.

What Can You Do

If you are a long distance runner, you will be hard pressed to find a long stretch of grass or dirt road you can run on for hours.  Cement and pavement are really hard surfaces for your feet to land on continuously.  Well this is something that you can’t really fix.  Just try to run less on concrete while doing hill work or speed training.  When you land you should try to land more on the heel of your feet and roll towards our mid-foot and spring off your toes.  If you notice the way you run, you land more on the balls of your feet and spraining your toes.  You can also reduce the pressure from this area with some padding.  Purchase some Dr.Scholls heel support.  Cut a U shape about 1/4″ thick, two or three inches long.  Place it in the shoe behind the balls of your feet, behind meaning the side closer to your heel.   This will force your feet to land more on your heel and so you don’t pound on them as hard.

If the pain persists even after you implement these preventions you might have some stress fractures in your toes.  This usually happens if you run a lot.  You should see your doctor or podiatrist and get an x-ray to see if it’s something more serious.

Related Running Tips:

1. Treat and Prevent shin splints
2. Proper running form
3. Tips to run faster

The main cause of blisters is improper running shoes.  I’m usually very careful about the running shoes I wear.  I wear only Saucony’s and have been wearing different models of the same brand.   Blisters only form because there is friction between your foot and the shoes you wear.  If the shoes are too big, there is too much room for your foot to move around.  Therefore causing unnecessary friction between your foot and the sides of your feet.  If the running shoes are too small and fit too tightly around your feet, your feet does not have enough room to move comfortably.  Tie you shoe laces comfortably.  Don’t “strangle” your feet, at least let them have some room to move.  Double tie if necessary.   Ask your local running store expert to see what kind of feet you have.  There are different running shoes for wide and narrow feet.   Pay special attention to see if you have neutral, high arched or low arched feet.

Another reason is a very subtle cause for blisters and that is your socks.  I always wore normal cotton socks that my mom bought from Walmart.  I didn’t want to dish out the mucho money on running socks.  The problem with normal socks is that if they are bulky and thick.  After running for about 20 minutes, your sock naturally slides down and folds up in the corner or bottom of your shoe.  Although the fold is small, it will rub constantly against the shoe and your foot causing blisters to form.  Special running socks fit to your feet called low rise “compression socks”.  Most of them are made from synthetic materials such as polyester, acrylic, and CoolMax because they will wick away moisture.  For winter running, wool blends such as SmartWool are also a good choice.  Stay away from cotton as they will absorb water and cause addition caffing.    Running socks range from $6 – $20 a pair.  If you don’t already have a good pair of running socks, these are definitely a good investment.    Oh yeah, note to self, not good idea not to run with socks that have holes.

Another good tip to prevent blisters while running is to lather vaseline on your feet so it will reduce the dry friction against your feet.  I’ve done that a couple times during the winter, mainly because the air is really dry and cold and my running shoes and socks get wet from the snow.  Applying vaseline really helps a lot.  Wherever I run, my vaseline is not far behind.

What’s your blister story?

Related Running Tips:

1. Pre-running preparations
2. Treat and Prevent shin splints
3. Running in the heat

There are many reasons to incorporate stretching into your running routine to prepare yourself for the rigors of the road. The benefits of stretching before running is that it will reduce the risk of injuries to your body, releases tension, and allows your body to have it’s full range of motion so able to perform better. Post run stretching is just as important and main benefit is to reduce muscle soreness and stiffness in the legs.  Pre run preparation is a 2 step process while the post run is just stretching.

Pre-run preparation

1. Warmup - Warmup is not the same as stretching.  Sometimes I see people hurt themselves while stretching more than when they are actually running.  So it’s important to warm up your body with a 5-10 min easy jog then proceed with your stretches.  Warm bodies stretch more easily.
2. Stretching - It’s recommended to stretch at least 5-8 mins per side and each muscle at least 3 times.  Your ankle, back, hamstring, quads, and groin muscles are major target areas for stretching.

Post-run stretches

It’s easy to just forget about stretching after runs, but this step is just as important as stretching before runs.  This will help and to release any tension in the arms, neck or shoulders.  Although, if you are experiencing tension in your arms or shoulders, this could be caused from poor running form.   Major areas to stretch are your hamstrings, quads, back and arms.

I sometimes forget to stretch after a run too which is no excuse but I try to do Yoga at least once a week to make up for it.  Stretching is important but extremely important for runners who run in the cold weather.

Related Running Tips:

1. Strength Training For Runners
2. Strength Training Workouts for Runners
3. Proper running form

Head

It’s tempting to stare at your feet while you run, but try to keep you look ahead to the horizon.  Keep your head in a neutral position, neither tilting your head left or right. Try to straighten your neck and back it to align with each other.  Don’t allow your back to curve.

Shoulders

Keep your shoulders relaxed and level when you run.  Sometimes your shoulders rise up to your ears without even noticing.  This would cause extra strain to your neck and you’ll have muscle pains in your neck and shoulders.   Remember to lower your shoulders and once in a while you should drop your arms to your waist and shake out the tension in your shoulders.

Back

Don’t lean backwards or arch your back backwards.  You’re feet should always be behind you and pushing your body forwards.  Lean your body slightly forwards and keep your head straight.   Your chest should be pointing in the direction you’re running and not to the sky.  Don’t be tempted to look around at other runners, it will only distract you.

Arms

Keep your fist unclenched and loosely let your fingers touch each other as if you were holding egg shells.   Allow your arms to swing back and forth with a 90 degree bend at the elbows.

Legs

Long distance runners need to take short strides with a slight knee lift.  This is in contrast to sprinters who need exaggerated knee lifts and long strides.  Your feet should land directly underneath your body with a slight bend in your knee so it will absorb the impact from the ground.

Feet

For distance running landing on your heel or toes is not the most efficient to run.   If you land on your heel it means that you are over striding and running from your toes usually causes more stress on your calf muscles and more appropriate for sprinting.   Your feet should land lightly between the heel and midfoot and quickly roll forwards and push off your front toe.  You should be feel your calf muscles pushing your forwards.   You should not sound like elephants on a parade.

Related Running Tips:

1. Stretching for runners
2. Foot Pain Under Toes
3. Speed training tips: Hill repeats

Best running surfaces listed below in descending order.  Detail analysis including pros and cons of each running path will follow shortly.

1. Running on the grass.
2. Running on asphalt.
3. Running in woodland trails.
4. Running on the track.
5. Running on the treadmill.
6. Running on sawdust and wood chip trails.
7. Running on the beach.
8. Running on concrete.
9. Running in the snow.

Related Running Tips:

1. Cause of shin splints when running
2. Pre-Race Checklist
3. Night running

Keep a training log to record when you bought the shoes.  This way it’s easier to track how much mileage you accumulated on them.  When you reached the half way mark, consider buying a new pair of runners to alternate between runs.  After a while you will notice a difference between the old-less cushioning with the new-more support and cushioning.

Runners typically have 2 – 3 running shoes in rotation to let the shoes dry out.   You’re shoes will last longer if they are allowed to decompress.

Related Running Tips:

1. Different brands of running shoes
2. What type of feet do I have?
3. 2009 – Top 5 “motion control” running shoes for women’s running

1. Walk on your toes and then switch to your heels for a few seconds.
2. Stretch your calves by doing heel raises and heel drops.
3. Get an ice pack and ice the area hurting.

How to prevent shin splints:

1. Do some cross training to build up strength in your legs, ie cycling and swimming.
2. Find if your runnings shoes are the right type for your feet.  They should be matched to the type of feet you have.

Hopefully this helps you, if the pain is still there after a few weeks you should see a doctor.

Related Running Tips:

1. Cause of shin splints when running
2. Foot Pain Under Toes
3. Spice Up Your Cross Training

Shin splints are usually associated with sports that involves a lot of running.  It’s the sudden shock of repeated pounding of the legs on the pavement and constant change in direction that is the cause of the problem.   When the muscles and tendons in the legs become fatigued, it loses it’s ability to absorb the damaging impact force. If the tendons do not absorb fast enough it causes shin splints.

Other runing activities that might cause your shin splints:

• Running on concrete.  You can run safely on either grass or asphalt.
• Running on uneven ground.  You should run on evenly paved ground.
• Running after taking an extended break.   You should maintain your running stamina even though you take a break.  Take time out of our schedule and run 5-10 minutes.
• Increasing running intensity or duration too quickly.  You should gradually run faster or longer over a few weeks.
• Running with shoes that don’t fit or uncomfortable.  You need to find shoes that match the needs of your feet.
• Running uphill or downhill.   You need to do hill training but ensure that you alternate your running trails, and goals.

Related Running Tips:

1. Treat and Prevent shin splints
2. Best running surfaces for your feet
3. Beginners Guide – How to get started