How to enhance your post-race recovery plan

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For most runners, crossing the finish line of a race represents the culmination of all the hard work they’ve put in over several months. The celebration should continue, but what happens after that? Some runners may decide to wait before focusing on their next race, while others may return to training right away. Regardless of where you go after a race, your body is under significant physiological stress, so post-race recovery is essential for a quick return to racing.

What happens to your body after a race?

It’s important to remember that each runner’s body responds differently to the stressors of a race, and recovery from a half marathon will be different than, say, an ultramarathon. Overall, long-distance races put a lot of stress on most of your body’s systems.

A study published in European Journal of Applied Physiology They demonstrated that at the end of a 24-hour ultra-endurance event, levels of creatine kinase, AST, and ALT increased up to 70 times above baseline in a group of male ultrarunners. All of these indicate significant muscle damage, increased IL-6 and CRP levels, and high levels of inflammation. Finishers also experienced increased white blood cell counts and decreased respiratory function.

Mentally, racing can have a significant impact on memory, mood, and reaction time due to changes in neurotransmitter production, blood flow, and hormonal status.

The goals of your post-race recovery plan should always be: It replenishes hydration and electrolytes, replenishes glycogen stores in the liver and muscles, repairs muscle damage, improves immune system function, and supports mind and body recovery.

hydration plan

While it’s important to replenish energy deficits after a race, hydrating as soon as possible can also help prevent fainting, heart problems, confusion, and fatigue. Not to mention, not staying hydrated can affect your cardiac output and anaerobic capacity for future training sessions. The longer you race, the more your hydration status is at risk.

Water loss rates vary widely between runners, so it’s helpful to weigh yourself before and after an event to get a rough idea of ​​how much hydration you’ll need after the event. Fluids should be changed when you have lost 150% of your body weight in 4 hours. Adding electrolytes to your fluid intake and eating sodium-rich foods like pickles, cheese, pretzels, and soups can help.

Replenishment of glycogen stores

By the end of the race, your liver and muscle glycogen stores are depleted and you may have been surviving on sugar, gel, or tortillas for the past 10 hours. Most runners are also in a significant calorie deficit, which is difficult to overcome, especially when appetite is reduced due to changes in leptin and ghrelin, which signal hunger and satiety. Your metabolism may remain slightly elevated for several days after a race as your body attempts to repair its systems and return to baseline.

The recovery process takes up to 4 hours for the liver to begin the process of carbohydrate uptake and muscle glycogen replenishment. To replenish glycogen stores as efficiently as possible, aim to replenish with 1.2 g of carbohydrate per kg of body weight every hour for the first 4 hours after the race. For many runners, this equates to 50 to 120 g of carbohydrates, which is about the same as eating one or two bagels, two pizzas, or a fruit juice-based smoothie four times over a short period of time.

If you have trouble maintaining your appetite, try consuming liquid calories in the form of juices, smoothies, or chocolate milk, or focus on foods you know you can eat (i.e., if you know you can eat them at any time) (eating cookies) is effective. eat cookies). Eating small, frequent meals and snacks in the days following a race is another way to help replenish all your energy. Please remember. Even if you have a rest day after the race, you’ll need to fuel more than usual to compensate. The hole you fell into.

The process of balancing muscle repair and inflammation

Your body’s muscle proteins are significantly broken down during a race, not to mention stress on organs like your heart and kidneys. Many runners experience delayed onset muscle soreness (DOM) a few days after an event. The combination of muscle protein breakdown and increased inflammation levels can quickly return without proper recovery tools, increasing the risk of injury.

Post-race protein should be consumed within the first 2 hours in an amount of 0.5G/kg body weight. For most runners, this equates to 20-40G of high-quality protein, found in convenient items like recovery protein shakes, chocolate soy milk, and protein bars. Due to the damage sustained during exercise, keeping your daily protein intake at a total of 1.6-2.0G/kg body weight for several days after a race will ensure adequate amounts of amino acids are available.

Regarding inflammation, increasing your intake of antioxidants from food and supplements post-race can reduce oxidative stress and muscle protein breakdown. Consuming high doses of polyphenol-rich fruits, such as tart cherry, blueberry, pomegranate, and beetroot juices, has been shown to have a powerful post-race inflammation balancing effect. Other beneficial foods include dark chocolate (70 percent or more cocoa), green tea, and spices such as turmeric, rosemary, and ginger.

Supports body and brain

In races, cortisol, noradrenaline, and adrenaline levels increase before and during the race, which can put your body into fight or flight mode. This response is complex, but respecting the stress experienced by the body and brain is important for the system to realign and calm the HPA axis. The HPA axis is the part of the central nervous system that produces hormones in response to stress. stress.

While it’s nearly impossible to avoid life’s stressors after a race, engaging in self-care activities like foam rolling, massage, soaking in mineral baths, and deep breathing exercises can help rebalance your system. Some breathing studies have demonstrated that breathing in and out the same amount six times per minute improves HRV, indicating that autonomic nervous system function may be improved. It has been.

Regulating your sleep after a race can be difficult, but increasing your sleep time and quality is one of the best ways to improve your performance and mental health. If you don’t have a good sleep routine, try to develop regular sleep habits, such as stopping using your phone, listening to music, reading, and drinking tea. You can improve your sleep quality by using earplugs, eye masks, and blackout curtains.

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Sure, you can get by without a post-race recovery plan, but what happens when you actually try to create a recovery plan? Can you come back faster and stronger? Conversely, not taking post-race recovery seriously can put some runners into dangerous territory. Ultrarunners in particular can be at increased risk for overtraining syndrome (OTS), which typically occurs when you’re too stressed and don’t get enough rest. OTS is complex but can cause extreme fatigue, hunger, insomnia, emotional instability, low motivation, and increased perceived exertion.

Take race recovery seriously. Plan your nutrition, stress relief, and sleep ahead of time. And trust your body. That’s pretty smart.