How Long Does It Take to Recover From a Marathon

By GINA KOLATA, Reporter reprinted from the NYT.com

Nancy Gonce for Operation Boot Camp

I ran my first marathon this month. It went well, and despite my fears, I had fun. I met my goals — qualified for the Boston Marathon with nearly half an hour to spare and came in second in my age group. But the big surprise was my coach’s advice the next day.

It will take four weeks to fully recover, he told me. That seemed like an awfully long time.

I was running again in three days, and I felt better than ever when I ran the week after. Who says recovery should take weeks?

As it turns out, there’s not much rigorous research on recovery after strenuous exercise. There have been almost no long-term studies, and there’s little agreement on what to measure or how to measure it. This aspect of competition is rife with unsubstantiated dogma.

One popular notion holds that however many miles you race, that’s how many days it takes to recover: A 10-mile race requires a 10-day recovery. Dr. Timothy Noakes, an exercise physiologist at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, dismisses that advice.

“The days-for-miles recovery theory was popularized in the 1970s but was not scientifically based,” he said.

Hirofumi Tanaka, an exercise physiologist at the University of Texas at Austin, said the question of recovery “is a tough one.”

“The answer will be dependent on what element of recovery you are interested in,” he said. “We do have some information about how long it takes to replenish muscle glycogen, the primary energy fuel during strenuous distance running. But we have no idea on other elements.”

Athletes who consume carbohydrates and, even better, some protein after an event can refill their muscles with glycogen within 24 hours. But this is short-term recovery, not at all what my coach was talking about.  Keep reading on NYT.com