How much recovery time between marathons

A high percentage of runners qualified at Chicago for the Boston Marathon and added that grand oldie to their list of milers.

Run only one marathon a year and you do limit your horizons. On several occasions, I have run multiple marathons with only a week or two break. Marty had a point as I discovered a dozen miles into the Panama City race.

I ran that far in the lead with Barry Brown, who also had run New York. Then I crashed badly and had to struggle to finish in Barry went on to win, but I saw him around 22 miles at an out-and-back part of the course.

He looked worse than I did! On several other occasions, I have run multiple marathons. I ran six marathons in six weeks to celebrate my 60th birthday and ran seven marathons in seven months to celebrate my 70th birthday.

In between, I ran ten during the space of one year so I could run my th marathon at the th Boston Marathon in While such stunts impress those who have run only a few marathons, I am far from being unique—or being the most obsessive multiple marathoner. The day before the race, I encountered a runner who was doing marathons in two years. He had just arrived in town after running a marathon in Tupelo, Mississippi earlier that Sunday morning!

A survey of those using my forums revealed that many run two or three marathons a year. They succeed by maintaining a training base near 25 miles a week year-round, which allows them to ramp up to 50 weekly miles during any marathon build-up.

My training programs run 18 weeks. After a reasonable amount of time for rest, you can begin in the middle. Only eight weeks long, it features only three days of running a week, but with workout runs longer than in most of my other schedules.

Actually, experienced runners know that after several weeks recovery, an 8- or week build-up probably suffices, except for those seeking peak performance. An intelligent option is running some marathons at less-than-best effort just to enjoy the experience.

A mile run thus becomes an extra-long workout. Here are some training strategies:. Here are some training strategies for runners running marathons two, four, six and eight weeks apart. I have interactive versions of my multiple marathon programs for each of those weeks-between. Click on one of the TrainingPeaks links at the top or bottom of this screen.

Focus instead on recovery. Maintain the same high-carbohydrate diet between marathons one and two that you hopefully did before the first. Schedule a massage 48 to 72 hours after the first marathon and if your budget permits a second massage before the second. You may want to do as much walking as running in the workouts below. The 6-mile run suggested for Saturday very definitely should not be fast.

Let your body dictate whether you want to spend that time running, walking, cross-training or just lying in front of a TV set.

Regardless of what you do during these two weeks, you are not going to improve your fitness. So concentrate instead on easy activities that will promote your recovery. One of the biggest mistakes marathon runners make is not taking enough recovery time after finishing the race. After Understandably, for a dedicated runner, taking an unforced day off or worse, a full week off , is about as enjoyable as a trip to the dentist for a root canal. Most runners have an irrational fear that missing a few runs will dramatically diminish their hard-earned fitness.

Moreover, putting your training on pause seems counter-intuitive after a great race—you want to capitalize on your fitness and continue to set new personal bests, right? Unfortunately, not taking enough time to fully recover after a marathon often leads to overtraining and injuries. Not only does resting for seven to ten days have little negative impact on your current fitness, the long-term gains will outweigh any temporary reduction in fitness. Muscles, tendons, ligaments, and almost every physiological system is challenged when running a marathon.

Here are some of the scientifically measured physiological systems that are impacted after running This study makes it clear that your muscles are undoubtedly weakened and need extensive recovery before returning to full training. Given this study also examined calf muscles during an extended training block, the need for downtime applies to any arduous training segment. Cellular damage post-marathon is best measured by the presence and production of creatinine kinase CK —a marker that indicates damage to skeletal and myocardial tissue — and increased myoglobin levels in the blood stream.

If you had a bad day, you might spend the next few hours searching the Internet for the soonest possible race, where you can extract revenge. Worst yet, have a mediocre race—especially if it's the result of something out of your control—and you won't be able to get the "what if" scenarios out of your mind.

Regardless of the outcome of your race, the question in your mind quickly becomes, "How long should I wait between marathons for optimal performance? If your only goal at a marathon is to finish, have fun and enjoy the travel, then by all means, go ahead and race to your heart's content. However, if you desperately want to qualify for Boston or finally break that 3- or 4-hour barrier, then it's imperative you structure your long-term training to maximize fitness and progression without burning out.

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