Recovery Is A Thing

MUSINGS FROM A COACH - 6 May '25

I frequently receive inquiries about the appropriate duration of a “recovery” period following significant endurance events and its characteristics. It’s evident that various individual factors may influence this, but certain commonalities apply to everyone.

First, let’s acknowledge that individual athletic histories, training volumes, event pace and effort, age, abilities, and preparation during the preceding weeks all contribute to the required recovery time or the safe return to normal training for each individual..

That said, here are some key considerations to guide the development of a recovery plan:

Nutrition

Nutritionally, your plan should commence immediately after the event and include rehydration and the consumption of protein and carbohydrates. The initial hour is crucial in determining how you'll feel in subsequent days. During the following days, eat well, but feel free to occasionally enjoy some delicious food. Just be mindful of portion sizes.

Sleep

Rest is the next essential aspect. Minimize physical activity whenever possible and strive for adequate sleep to facilitate the healing process. After nutrition, sleep emerges as the most effective action for expediting recovery from a prolonged event.

Physically

Your body will require a break. Following any major endurance event, your musculoskeletal, nervous, cardiorespiratory, and endocrine systems are depleted and need to recover. Unstructured training for a week usually covers a lot of bases and allows us to listen to our bodies and move normally with minimal impact. Walking, easy spinning, or simply doing nothing can have some incredible benefits. Again, individual variations exist, but it may take multiple days or even weeks to fully recover from a significant event.

Mentally

Mentally, regardless of whether the event was enjoyable or challenging, you’ll need a break. While it may be tempting to jump back into hard or long training, it’s important to resist the urge to “get back at it” immediately. Consider engaging in enjoyable activities that you neglected during the training cycle leading up to the big event. Spending time with family, traveling, or simply being alone can be the perfect mental recovery program you need.

It’s crucial to give your body enough time to repair itself and absorb the intense training it’s undergone due to the big event. If you disregard this, there’s a high probability that you’ll feel extremely lethargic, exhausted, and burnt out 4-6 weeks later because you never adequately recovered.

One final note: many athletes feel emotionally down after a big event. Sometimes their body recovers well, but they lack the motivation to do anything. This can be frustrating and confusing, but often times has a reasonable explanation: your mind needs a break. So if you're feeling guilty because you don't want to "do anything" after a big race, consider that it might just be your brain telling you to just take a break.  

Gratefully,

Mark

CEO Team MPI