Has anyone else dealt with this? a little over a week past IMFL i just cant find the motivation to work out. I ran 2 miles on the treadmill today and found myself just staring at the clock.
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Sounds like you’re ready for a break so enjoy the off season unless you’ve got something else coming up soon.
Yes. It is common. You just spent a year training for one of the biggest events in your life…now what. I am just getting back to the sport now after I ran IMFL in 2007, granted I had a couple kids in between. Any way, take some time off, drink some beer, watch football and then turn of the year set some new goals, by a couple new pieces of equipment that you have had your eye on and watch some motivational movies or the Ironman recap from this year. If that doesn’t work find another way to stay in shape until the drive comes back. For me, I got into tm biking. It was a whole new passion and just as if not more challenging. I knew my love for tri would come back and it finally did…years later
I too just finished IMFL and haven’t done much yet. Last year after IMMT, I did very little for four to six weeks and put on close to ten pounds. That won’t happen again this year.
I’m actually eager to get back to it. The first run seemed to take forever. The second one was not as bad. I even played a solid game of hockey five days after the race.
The key is to ease into it. But don’t stop. No need for anything structured right now, and no need to hit it hard. Dev posted last week that doing something, anything is better than nothing. A week of nothing can turn into two and then four and then ten extra pounds.
Just my $0.02. Hope you had a good day at IMFL. And hats off to you for raising money for the kids.
I just started running about a week ago after doing Kona. Haven’t been in the pool at all other than in the backyard to clean it today. I’ve ridden probably a total of 100 miles since then.
All that to say, yes, it’s very common post IM.
Don’t force it bc you will then end up taking a long break from any excercise. After my first in 07 I basically gave up tris after for a bit and would only race here and there. Got the bug again a couple years ago and after this ironman I was chomping at the bit to recover and get going again. I did LP this year and then did an olympic in Sept that I ended up getting food poisoning so the race was a bomb. After that I stopped all structured workouts and just run bc I want to run and ride bc I want to ride and …you get the picture.
I’ve had some of my best runs this fall bc I’m doing it bc it feels right and not forced. I’ve also been enjoying more family time, beer time, and I’m going to pace my wife in her first 5k since baby #2. (She wants to get right back to her pre baby 1 paces all at once, hence the pacing) Don’t get discouraged it will happen. You raced like 10 minutes ago, sit back and enjoy looking at your medal and wearing you finisher gear around the house.
Sounds like you’re ready for a break so enjoy the off season unless you’ve got something else coming up soon.
+1!!
Completely normal. Refer to this thread for ideas about the “off-season.” Don’t be afraid to completely step away for a few weeks or more. Activity resumes with brief 10 minute jaunts as often as you like.
Glad you brought this up. I had the post IM blues pretty bad this summer. Legs were shattered for a while too.
I can’t believe it myself but it’s a big uptick in swimming that has me rejuvenated . . . Plus burying myself in sufferfest workouts. Running eh. 2015.
A possible way to avoid this might be to view big races as a part of the process, rather than a culmination. And keep a full race calendar for the following year so that you can quickly re-focus afterward. That seems to work for me.
On a side note, I saw a ton of you guys out there at IMFL with the Children’s Tumor Foundation kits - what an awesome thing to do for a great cause!
I hear it’s been almost 2 months since IMMD and I haven’t even taken off the free seat cover that IM gave for the bike. The race wheels remain on and are flat now as the bike just collects dust. With winter practically here, this won’t change anytime soon bye-bye bike fitness. However, I’ve been running which from a time standpoint is easy as 30 minutes a day easily keeps some fitness. The swim is similar to the bike although I’ve been doing my best to swim 2x per week but just 30 minutes of goof off swimming. I suck at swimming so if I miss weeks of that my form is completely gone.
Ironman training takes so much time & energy for me that it’s hard to keep it going post race.
Good luck…
go do something else for a while, total immersion in this sport isn’t for everyone. There’s so many other fun things to do, skiing, mountain biking, hiking, go to the pool and take the water slide ride don’t even go near the lane pool, hell even a crossfit workout 
Change does the mind good.
One week? Took me around 4 to feel even remotely like working out again after Whistler. I didn’t actually resume any kind of structured training for 6 weeks.
Take it easy, eat a cheeseburger. Don’t force it. Focus on something else for a little while, and sooner then later you will feel the itch and desire to start training again.