03/09/2026
POST MARATHON âCAN I RUN YET?â x a few memes to soften the blow đ€Łđ€Ł
This is the question I get asked more than any other in the week after a big race. And to be fair, Iâm asking myself the same thing on day 4 đ€Ș
The problem is social media warps what normal recovery looks like. You see people back running three days after a marathon, hitting sessions within the week, and it feels like thatâs the standard. It isnât. Thatâs a tiny number of elite and highly trained runners with years of load behind them, a support team, and often a very different level of damage than the rest of us are carrying.
For the average runner, the picture is different. Soreness clears in days. Strength comes back in about a week. But the structural stuff, muscle fibres, tendon and bone, is still being rebuilt for weeks. Bone is actually at its weakest a few weeks after the race, not straight after it.
So the honest answer to âcan I run yetâ on day 4 is, itâs probably not work it.
Walk, swim, cycle, sleep, eat. Just do low impact stuff for 10-14 days. Throw in a test run around day 8 to 10. Easy running the rest of week 2, add in some strides / tempos work week 3, then go back into your first proper training week if the green lights are ticked. Two weeks of patience costs you almost nothing long term! Rushing it can cost you the next block!
Swipe through, save it for the day after your next race, and send it to whoever ran on Sunday.
How long do you take off after a marathon? Tell me in the comments.
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