Finishing a marathon is meant to be a euphoric expertise—the results of months (typically years) of relentless coaching, sacrifice, and self-discipline. But for a lot of runners, reaching the long-awaited end line can deliver up detrimental and sudden emotions like hollowness, vacancy, and even disappointment.
Many runners name this emotional comedown the “post-race blues.” “There’s a lot build-up and a lot pleasure, after which rapidly, it’s simply over,” Rachel Gersten, a licensed psychological well being counselor and cofounder of Viva Psychological Well being + Wellness, tells SELF. “It’s not prefer it slowly tapers off. It’s simply executed.”
These bittersweet feelings can happen no matter how your race went. Certain, it is smart to really feel bummed when you needed to drop out or fell in need of your time objective, however even finishing your dream race can deliver a way of pre-grieving: “You additionally acknowledge that this may increasingly by no means occur once more,” Gersten says. “Or it is perhaps years till [you] really feel this good at a race.”
So whether or not you’ve simply wrapped an enormous fall race, or have one arising in your schedule, right here’s what you may count on afterward—and a few methods to manage, from therapists who’re additionally endurance runners themselves.
Put together for the rise and the autumn.
In case you count on to be driving excessive after incomes your medal however end up struggling as a substitute, you would possibly really feel responsible or marvel if there’s one thing mistaken with you, says Gersten, who’s run the New York Metropolis Marathon. This may ship you right into a spiral of detrimental ideas, which is why it’s essential to anticipate these lows as a typical a part of the method.
To permit your self a little bit emotional wiggle room, take into account taking off the following day (or take off yet one more day after you get residence, when you’ve traveled). Which means no work and no different large obligations, if potential—and completely no understanding. “Give your self that interval to really feel the way you’re gonna really feel—to both be excited and to have a very enjoyable day, or to only sit on the sofa and really feel your emotions,” Gersten says.
Care for your physique.
Any large effort—particularly a race so long as a marathon—requires vital restoration. The fundamentals embody practices like hydrating, foam rolling, and being attentive to any lingering ache that would sign an damage.
It’s additionally essential to refuel. Based on Stephanie Roth-Goldberg, LCSW-R, CEDS-S, licensed consuming dysfunction specialist and founding father of Intuitive Psychotherapy in New York, many individuals don’t eat sufficient within the days after a race, both as a result of they’re too fatigued or as a result of they assume that since they’re working much less, they should in the reduction of.
