Post-marathon limbo

Ain't no mountain high enough...

The state of mind I've been in since Amsterdam marathon two weeks ago, is mildly put, interesting. I had promised myself during the long training period towards the marathon that I would take a good rest of at least two weeks afterwards. I was really looking forward to the rest, but I have perhaps been a bit surprised about how well I embraced it and felt like I didn't want it to end.

The first week of the rest was wonderful. We took a few days off and went to Spain, and it did me really good. Lots of good food and a little too much wine, in particular no running what so ever. Just a short swim one day, and otherwise slow walking mainly for sightseeing. When I saw runners on the beach, I was so happy that I didn't have to run. First alarm bell: "have to"??? I realized the last phases of the marathon training, combined with the worries about injuries, had felt more like something I had to do rather than something I wanted to do.

After coming home I was expecting the will to run to come back quickly, but it did not happen. On the contrary, I have been feeling pretty tired all the time. This past week, I found it hard to get up in the mornings, and felt completely finished in the evenings. A couple of planned (short and slow!) running sessions got canceled because I simply didn't feel up to it. I had good evidence that I did not have to push to get started again before my body felt ready. It is written all over the place that a body needs 2-3 weeks of rest (possibly with some easy training sessions) after a marathon. Although everything feels good, running 42 km makes a lot of small damages to the skeleton, muscles, and tendons. Going back to regular training before the body has had time to repair all these small damages, can result in serious injury. So I was happy to just enjoy the couch a few more days.

But as days passed, I was a bit worried that the will to run did not come back. I was expecting that I would have to limit myself compared how much I wanted to run, but quite the opposite happened. What was happening? Had the marathon taken away my will to run and train? The first Blåmanen race is only a little more than a week away, and I felt like I should get going, albeit easily, if I would have a chance at that. But I couldn't even find motivation to join that race. What? The most wonderful time of the year!? What happened to all that??? "Come on, how can anything like that ever compare to a marathon?" Aha, so that's it? Having completed such a goal that I have been working towards for so long, makes everything else lose importance? Feeling a little high on ourselves, are we? Hmm... not good.

Thursday evening, finally Frank pushed me to go for a run and then some strength training. It didn't feel good at all. I had been very happy about how my legs, tendons, hips and hamstrings felt so good after the race. But as soon as I started running, although extremely slowly, everything felt painful. Nothing felt right. I even discovered that I have an aching shoulder! After the terribly slow run we went for some strength training, and also there I found it difficult to push. I did not dare to strength train the two weeks before the race, so now it felt like I had lost all my muscles. A little bit of this, and a little bit of that, and I was done. Back home, back to the couch.

As bad as the Thursday session felt, I think it was the right thing to do. Already the day after I was feeling a lot better. Tried strength training again, and felt much stronger and infinitely more motivated. Then, yesterday I joined the Melkesyre Saturday uphill intervals. And that turned out to be exactly what I needed and I think it came exactly at the right moment. During the weeks before the race, I could not join these sessions since there was always some long run during the weekends. So I had really missed it and missed being with all my friends. This session gave me a surprisingly quick shift of mind. Before we started I was telling people that I would not run Blåmanen 1, but afterwards I felt pretty confident that I would. I even started to talk about Berlin marathon on the way down. Fortunately my more sensible friends quickly talked me out of it. And fortunately, there is already a quite hairy plan for 2017.

But first Frank and I need to buy new bikes...