Marathon Recovery, Part II

Getting back in the saddle

During the fourth week after the marathon, the volume of training increases moderately and two sessions of accelerations or strides are introduced. The reason for these specific workouts is that your marathon training, and the marathon itself, will have made you strong but slow, and strides are a simple way to improve your leg speed and form without too much effort. These sessions should be done after a thorough warm-up, with gentle stretching both before and after the run. Allow yourself plenty of rest between each repetition so that you can run each one with good technique. 

During the fifth week post-marathon, it is time to re-introduce workouts to improve your lactate threshold. These “tempo runs” should be done at approximately your 15k to 1/2 marathon race pace. Tempo runs do not break down the body as much as intervals because they are not fast enough to cause substantial muscle damage, nor are they long enough to totally deplete your muscles of glycogen. Include a session of strides and a tempo run in your training for at least two weeks before re-introducing track work into your training program. Following this schedule, and fine-tuning based on how you feel, should leave you injury free and ready to resume serious training.