The Submit-Marathon Blues Are Frequent. This is The best way to Beat Them

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 convey up unfavorable and surprising 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 unexpectedly, 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 accomplished.”

These bittersweet feelings can happen no matter how your race went. Certain, it is sensible to really feel bummed in the event you needed to drop out or fell wanting your time objective, however even finishing your dream race can convey a way of pre-grieving: “You additionally acknowledge that this may occasionally 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 a giant fall race, or have one arising in your schedule, right here’s what you may anticipate afterward—and a few methods to manage, from therapists who’re additionally endurance runners themselves.

Put together for the rise and the autumn.

If you happen to anticipate to be driving excessive after incomes your medal however end up struggling as an alternative, you may really feel responsible or surprise if there’s one thing flawed with you, says Gersten, who’s run the New York Metropolis Marathon. This will ship you right into a spiral of unfavorable 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, contemplate taking off the subsequent day (or take off another day after you get residence, in the event you’ve traveled). Meaning no work and no different huge obligations, if potential—and completely no figuring out. “Give your self that interval to really feel the way you’re gonna really feel—to both be excited and to have a extremely enjoyable day, or to simply sit on the sofa and really feel your emotions,” Gersten says.

Deal with your physique.

Any huge effort—particularly a race so long as a marathon—requires vital restoration. The fundamentals embrace practices like hydrating, foam rolling, and listening to any lingering ache that would sign an damage.

It’s additionally essential to refuel. In response to 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 suppose that since they’re operating much less, they should in the reduction of.