A Question for Runners

Just need a little advice. I ran a half marathon on June 3rd. It was extremely hot and humid and the geniuses that set up the race didn't have any water stops from mile's 4 thorugh 8, and this part of the course was the hottest portion with little to no shade. Needless to say I didn't plan for this and dehydrated pretty good and spent a better portion of Miles 8-9 trying to walk out cramps. Now that said, I have had a hard time getting back into my running routine. A quick 3-5 miles is ok but I have had real trouble getting back into my longer runs. I have been paying close attention to hydration but I seem to be having trouble recovering from this, or maybe it's just in my head. I don't have any major races until Oct when I have a marathon. Any ideas on how long of a recovery period I should expect or any ways to get back to "normal" would be great.

Thanks,
Jay

Did you take a few days off from running?
You may need to give your body time to heel..

Steve has already covered my first thought on this. Did you rest?

Without question, read Survival of the Fittest by Mike Stroud - he's a doctor/explorer/marathon man and with the exception of one annoying chapter on evolution, the book will cover all elements of sport and health. Written for the layman, the book covers de-hydration very early on and is a real eye opener.

I really messed myself up duiring and after a short race of about 8 miles. I was wasted - lost feeling in my lower legs, hands and lower arms, puking, my head a thumping morass of pain and barely feeling on the planet - ALL through lack of water.

I've never conquered the demons that got me on that day, re-hydration now takes ages after a hard run. Again, read the book and you'll find yourself sitting in a chair agreeing with the author as he describes various elements of health and running, in turn this will boost your understanding, which in turn will get you back on the road to performing well.

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Originally Posted by steve

Did you take a few days off from running?
You may need to give your body time to heel..

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Yeah I took a few days off, then started back up with a weeks worth of 5ks just to loosen things back up. I just haven't been able to get my mileage back up, I get real fatigued, more so than before, on my runs of 8-10 miles. I've also been looking at my diet and summer drinking levels (Beer and Bacardi) and have tried to limit that to weekends only, though fathers day and my wifes offer to drive put that to the test.

I just haven't felt right since the half, I assume if I just stick to the 5K's through the end of June, then start building in July and August I should be ok. Tracked down my Fuel Belt and will pay closer attention to hydration in the future, but it just seems like this has gone on longer than it should have.

Another question for you. The Marathon in Oct will be my first, how much time should I take off after the race? There's a 10K that I have run as a tradition the following weekend.

Thanks for the help,
Jay

Seriously, read the book - more questions asked in your second post are addessed directly. (I've had GB national squad coaches preaching at me for years and the book puts the best parts of their advice plus one hell of a lot more in just 240 pages.)

In addition, I'd say you should mix things up a bit for a month - change your routes, put in hill work, get on your bike, get on a rowing machine - all of this may serve to shake out the fatigue (mental and physical) you refer to.

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Originally Posted by Shorey

Steve has already covered my first thought on this. Did you rest?

Without question, read Survival of the Fittest by Mike Stroud - he's a doctor/explorer/marathon man and with the exception of one annoying chapter on evolution, the book will cover all elements of sport and health. Written for the layman, the book covers de-hydration very early on and is a real eye opener.

I really messed myself up duiring and after a short race of about 8 miles. I was wasted - lost feeling in my lower legs, hands and lower arms, puking, my head a thumping morass of pain and barely feeling on the planet - ALL through lack of water.

I've never conquered the demons that got me on that day, re-hydration now takes ages after a hard run. Again, read the book and you'll find yourself sitting in a chair agreeing with the author as he describes various elements of health and running, in turn this will boost your understanding, which in turn will get you back on the road to performing well.

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In retrospect I could have rested a few more days, I just get real jumpy if I don't stick to my runs. I used to be addicted to smoking, now it's running. Though I wasn't as bad as you described, I had real problems with cramping. The set up was weird, they had water stops at mm 2,3,4 then nothing until about 8.5. I didn't pay enough attention to hydration before the race, didn't really start addressing it until the day before. THis is Minnesota, it's usually cooler and dry, on race day it was 85 degrees and 60+ dew point at the start of the race. Not a normal early June day. I drank what I thought was a good amount before the race, then noticed that with 700 runners, they only had 7 bathrooms. Not normally a problem but this was in a suburb and no real place to sneek away. So I stopped drinking about an hour before the race to avoid having to stand in a huge line. Then felt great at mm2 and skipped the water and waited until mm3 to drink. From there I hit every water stop.

I will check out this book. I'm hoping the October marathon should have better weather, though it's been a weird year up here. A number of my friends ran Grandmas in Duluth last weekend and it was terrible weather for a marathon. High 60's and 80% humidity for the start. A ski patrol friend of mine worked first aid and said they treated some 415 for dehydration. Guess global warming might be the real deal after all.

Thanks for the advice,
Jay

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Originally Posted by Shorey

Seriously, read the book - more questions asked in your second post are addessed directly. (I've had GB national squad coaches preaching at me for years and the book puts the best parts of their advice plus one hell of a lot more in just 240 pages.)

In addition, I'd say you should mix things up a bit for a month - change your routes, put in hill work, get on your bike, get on a rowing machine - all of this may serve to shake out the fatigue (mental and physical) you refer to.

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Great ideas! I have thought about joining a running club for the up coming marathon, and recently started weight training on my off days. The idea of biking sounds great to me. In the past the mountain bike was just a quicker way to get further down stream for trout fishing. Might have to break that out and ride more.

Thanks,
Jay

Jay, is it your first marathon?

It's pretty common to "burn out" after a marathon and not even want to run for about two months... I always shift to swimming/pool workouts or the bike right after... you should be fine for your 10k though, that is so short :)

Very cool that you started weight training.

For your initial problem... I think that in distance training overall, the milage between 8-11 is the hardest for your body to acclimate to. At least for me, once I got over the 10-mile "hump" in training, it seemed like I could just go forever, but I really had to push from 8-10 to add those extra couple of miles. You might be having the same thing?

Try running with an ipod, or running with a friend, stay distracted and not notice the milage as much as the time you are running- go out for an hour and forty minutes and just take it nice and easy, slow jog for that time. Don't stress the milage and just enjoy the nice day.... see if that makes the LR easier.

Keep me posted on how it goes!

Shorey, I am going to have to check out that book.

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Originally Posted by TacomaLuv

Jay, is it your first marathon?

It's pretty common to "burn out" after a marathon and not even want to run for about two months... I always shift to swimming/pool workouts or the bike right after... you should be fine for your 10k though, that is so short :)

Very cool that you started weight training.

For your initial problem... I think that in distance training overall, the milage between 8-11 is the hardest for your body to acclimate to. At least for me, once I got over the 10-mile "hump" in training, it seemed like I could just go forever, but I really had to push from 8-10 to add those extra couple of miles. You might be having the same thing?

Try running with an ipod, or running with a friend, stay distracted and not notice the milage as much as the time you are running- go out for an hour and forty minutes and just take it nice and easy, slow jog for that time. Don't stress the milage and just enjoy the nice day.... see if that makes the LR easier.

Keep me posted on how it goes!

Shorey, I am going to have to check out that book.

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Tacoma,

This was my first Half Marathon so I'm frankly just happy to have finished. Last year almost to the day I finished my first 5K after years of smoking so this is pretty huge for me.

I do run with an Ipod, though I'm trying to break myself of that habit, I'm registered for the Twin Cities Marathon in Oct and they have a strict ban so I'm running every other time without the music, which sucks. When I don't have the music to occupy my mind I strat thinking about business, not the right tiopic I know and it's a good thing I have one of those huge smart phones that's too heavy to run with or I'd start calling clients.

I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one to hate the miles after 8 or 9. On race day everything was going great and I was having a blast. The course was an out and back and the back sides of the mm's were the Twin Cities MM, so it was kind of cool at MM 3 to look at the back side of MM 10 and read MM 24. Ok that confused me, nice writing huh? Anyway things didn't go south for me until about 10.5 or 11. I didn't realize how much the lack of water had on me from mm4 to 8 until the cramping in my hamstring almost dropped me to the ground. I walked it out, took more water and then some "pretty hot women" (oh and I'm married but a fella can look) came up behind me and said "let's finish this fucker off". That was frankly just what I needed. The last bit of the race was fine, a little cramping but I was running with the hot chick so I shrugged it off.

I just have had problems getting back into my normal routine, although yesterday after I posted this I went for a run. Didn't time anything, get all worked up over splits, etc. Just went out for a run with the idea that I would just go until I either ran out of time and needed to be back at work, or started feeling rough. I ended up having one of my better runs, don't know a time but I cruised though a little over 8 miles and felt great. I have been really hitting the hydration and avoiding booze. And I've gotten a little stricter about my eating habits again. With two kids it's easy to dip into their treats after they go to bed, but I've been good for a couple weeks now. So I think I'm going to continue this "unstructured" running for the next few weeks and see how it goes. I'm feeling much better and my next lang race is the Twin Cities Marathon on Oct 1st. so I don't have to get all worked up over training for a while yet. Again, my goal is just to finish, and if possible under 4:30. Hell, I'm 37 and have been running a little over a year so finishing is really the goal, and damm it I want the medal so finishing under 6 hours is a must.

So thanks for the help Tacoma, and to Shorey, I can't find that book in the US, it is listed on Amazon UK, but apparently wasn't released in the US for some reason. I sent an email to the publisher and we'll see where that takes me. I am also joining a running club with coaches etc. So hopefully I'll pick up a few things before Oct.

Good Luck,
Jay

I know the feeling though, just simple recovery and that mindset, and I was hydrated completely for my race!

Ran my first half-marathon not quite two weeks ago, took a couple days off after, ran two miles for my first post-race run, and it was a struggle. A struggle to run 2 miles, I was bored or tired or something. Due to travelling, my second run wasn't until this Sunday, and it was crazy! My HR on a run I usually do with a HR of about 165 (up some trail switchbacks quite slowy) was instead a constant 180+, and that including a lot of walking! Obviously haven't recovered completely yet, eh?

I'll admit, part of that is the return from sea level vacation (AK) to running at 7500+ feet, but some of it is a weariness of running. Can't seem to wrap my mind around a run yet, feel like sitting on the couch and reading instead. The thought of a long run, well, it'll be a week or so before a real LR, but I don't look forward to it like I usually do.

Anyway, good luck, hydrate plentily, and good luck in your marathon!

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Originally Posted by TacomaLuv

It's pretty common to "burn out" after a marathon and not even want to run for about two months...

This worries me, I've been racing over distances of up to 8 miles, I'm about to step it up over the next few years culminating in a big scale endurance event in 2009 (I hope.) I'm actually glad I've read this I suppose because I'd be really worried if I finished my first long race and didn't want to get back at it straight within a week.... even so, it is weird how the body can just say "no" sometimes.

Shorey, I am going to have to check out that book.

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Do, it is good - except the first section about cave men...

(Edit - appology for the blue type thing, thought it would help . My bad.)