By Ellie J. Hodder
A fair share of walkers love events--anything from a 5k walk to marathons and longer. Part of the reason we love them is that we look forward to the training part of each event. With longer distances, like marathons, there is a sense of accomplishment building from shorter to longer training distances. It feels great to be able to say, "I did my first 10-miler today" and see the look of admiration (or was that a dubious look?) on a friend's face and then to continue to build that not so shabby 10-miler to 16 and 20 miles and more.
There the friends you make training for a big event. These are not your ordinary folk who will get out of bed and be there for you at 6:00 am on a weekend morning. They show up faithfully whether there is rain, snow, fog or the promise of sunshine. After four to six hours of trouping through neighborhoods and park trails, there isn't much you don't know about each other. You've scouted to find the route's actual flush toilets or the best bushes when there aren't flushers. You've talked about everything from the family dog to the spouse to and solved 92% of the world's problems. You took turns being the whiney one and slow3ed your pace way down when your walking buddy got bad blister that sunny August day, even though you'd planned to get home early and spend the afternoon putting the finishing touches on that antique dresser. You've shared secrets in a way you haven't since the last slumber party at your best friend's house. Back then you laughed until the tears rolled. Funny,--that much is still the same.
And then there was the event itself. In a week of intense anticipation there is carbolading, which can send your mood from giggly to, grumpy at the speed of light. You have been decreasing your training miles to rest for the event and, even though it feels kind of nice, it also feels awkward after so many months of focussed training. Getting your race number is an event to be savored with the "6:00 am Club." The night before the marathon, you're so over-wound that you hardly sleep.
On race day, in one mighty rush of adrenaline, you're off on your marathon. Whether it's all good or all bad, or maybe a little bit of both, you're "there" at the finish line before you know it and someone has announced your name. Another bunch of "someones" is fussing over you and giving you a space blanket, hanging a medal around your neck and ushering you into a special place reserved just for marathon finishers.
And you wait at the finish to cheer your friends. You wear your medal along with your sandals to work on Monday. You have a victory celebration and tell war stories. You tell anecdotes like the time the porto-pottie nearly got whisked away with you in it!
Suddenly, it's over.
Ten months of checking off the miles on your training schedule. Ten months of planning. Ten months of knowing what you would have to do to accomplish your marathon goal and ten months of doing everything you needed to do.
Ten months of knowing who you are, . . .. . . a marathoner, of course, . . .. . . happened in seven hours and twelve minutes!
You find yourself feeling lost, out of sorts and lonely in a way that's hard to explain to your family and friends who didn't do the marathon with you and who have been waiting patiently for everything to "get back to normal." There's something vaguely familiar about this feeling, but it takes awhile to remember it's how you felt the day after the last performance of the Senior play in high school.
You are in the recovery phase, the odd duck of event training. Recovery is an inevitable and necessary phase of event training. It is the all-important quiet time, always quiet, which is in sharp contrast to the frenetic energy of the last few months before the marathon. It is hardly surprising to know that this is a time when many marathoners report a case of the blues or a period of depression.
Your body is tired from the event itself. It will take a month or two for everything to come back into balance. Filling the "hole" or void you feel with more events or diving back headlong into training is often destructive and frequently leads to mental burnout and serious injury.
Knowing that a recovery phase follows every major event as surely as autumn follows summer is one way to be prepared to take full advantage of and, even enjoy the differences. It is an opportunity to regenerate friendships with those who waited lovingly for more of the pleasure of your company while you were engrossed in hours of training. It is an opportunity to look back and own the positives of the experiences you chose for yourself. It is about taking time to be still, to be with yourself and to be inwardly, rather than outwardly, focussed.
It is a time to evaluate the things that you might have done differently or better and to sharpen your awareness to avoid falling into old traps next time. It is a time to take a class, try a new workout, discover a new author, or special restaurant. It is a time to clear your head of exercise cobwebs.
This is very much the time to breathe "deeply and often" and to feel your breath all the way to your toes. It is a time to remember who you are as an athlete and why you chose to walk a marathon when there were much easier paths you could have chosen. In this quiet time you will both find the ownership of a job well done, but also the seeds for the goals from which you will reap next year's rewards.
Winter Maintenance Schedule
Most folks will want to maintain a good level of fitness during the "off" season. Ideally, you will want to continue to work out 4-6 days per week. The schedule below begins with Portland Marthon Sunday and helps you through the first weeks of recovery. Obviously, you're not going to go out and walk a long distance right away, but you will want to move around and get everything moving in the days following the event.
Though this schedule presumes you will continue with walking alone, I also know you may want to consider some alternatives during some of the stormier winter days. Consider substituting an aerobics class or swimming or nordic track, say for 2-3 days and walk the other days. For those of you who enjoy working out with weights, this is a good time to return to that regime as well. Most of all, make this workout period one that is enjoyable so you can cruise through the stresses--good and bad--of the holiday season.
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©1998. Ellie J. Hodder
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Ellie Hodder is an avid walker and event enthusiast. She has been teaching speed walking programs in the Metro area since 1992. Ellie is founder/director of Women Walk the Marathon® (1990), coordinator of the Portland Marathon Walk Clinics and Tthe Portland Marathon Training Walk series, and the Walking Coach for the Joints in Motion Training Team, a marathon program of the Arthritis Foundation. Hodder earned her masters degree from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale and is an American College of Sports Medicine Health/Fitness Instructor.