Finished my “a” race for the year last week in Wisconsin. Great race by the way with great volunteers and vibe.
My question is for those who do this often, this was my 2nd.
I am feeling very apathetic and not into exercising. My mind says ok its been 10 days lets start doing something but I just can not get motivated to do it. What do most people do to get back into it after an A race IM? Take a month off? A week?
I guess its normal to feel a little lost when the race was such a big focus of your life for 8 + months right? I am thinking I need to set next years goal race and plan and that would help…
Give me your “post race” schedule.
Thanks
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Spend the first 5-7 days like a rockstar/superhero on Facebook and Slowtwitch enjoying you sucess.
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Spend 2 weeks of unstructured training, no running for 10 days. No goals and only very vague workouts plan for short swims. Ride at whatever watts and intensity I feel like. Mostly easy but hammer for a bit too. Whatever.
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Set up my 2015 tentative race calendar, and ATP in Trainingpeaks for my 2 “A” races next season.
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Get excited about what you can achieve this season and the process of building even more fitness and speed that you had this year.
I can’t wait to go on my first real run in 10 days (ran 3 miles last Friday… I just assume forget that experience, it was not pleasant, was too soon). Legs feel great.
For me, I’m in the best fitness of my life (A huge understatement) and next year could be my one shot in my life at racing in Kona, so I’m making the most of it… while living on a budget (most sprint races, limited or cheap travel)
After that in 2016, I’ll probably take that fitness and try and set a PR in the marathon.
Three weeks after Chattanooga I am taking a week and hiking the GA portion of the Appalachian trail. Mainly to just decompress and it is wife sanctioned so why not. Signed up for a MTB duathlon on the 26th just for fun. I will then ride the hell out of my MTB as much as possible.
Do something athletic that isn’t SBR. Camping and hiking is great this time of year if you are into that sort of thing. Or if you still need something kind of familiar to your routine, bike touring or mountain biking is a great way to mix it up. Do some organized group rides. Spend several weeks just working on your swim at the pool, it will help your body recover from the higher impact sports and also give you a jump start for next season.
Or…catch up on all the time you missed with family and friends over the last 6-8 months. With ice cream and beer. Lots of beer.
I did Wisco as well. I just went on my first run this morning. Met my normal group at the local farmer’s market for our usual 8 mile hilly loop. Then into the market for coffee and deliciousness after.
The biggest thing for me is to have fun and do it with friends. Enjoy the freedom of not having a training plan. Heck, do something spontaneous this weekend! You don’t have a long bike to plan around!
Last year I had a marathon scheduled for about 3 months after the IM, for this very reason, with the intention of hitting a bit of run focus after the big race and trying to go sub 3. Could try something like that?
I also enjoyed eating pastry for the first time in 9 months…
I normally spend a week pigging out, sleeping a lot and not even thinking about exercise. Find that’s long enough for me to want to start doing something active again, but it will be very unstructured for a while. No heart rate, power, GPS or anything else, and possibly not even SBR - I might go mountain biking, hiking, hit the gym and do some beach weights, get out in a rowing boat or kayak, go surfing, play some team sports, etc.
The spur for me starting structured training again is normally entering another event (whenever I’ve done an IM it’s been the last race in my season). Might take a few weeks, might take a few months.
I just did my first at Whistler this year. Took a good month of afterwards. I tried to come back after 2 weeks, and it just wasn’t there physically or mentally, so I stopped. I just focused on other things… catching up with friends, family, etc. You neglect a lot of relationships while in IM prep mode and it was nice to catch up with people.
After a month my body and mind let me know I was ready to start working out again. It feels good, and not forced now. Let those post IM blues just run their course.
I’ll let you know when I actually figure it out. I’ve done 8 and my regular routine is to eat until I gain 20 pounds then spend the next 6 months to a year trying to peel it back off.
It is very tough for me. Now that I’m getting older (47, rapidly approaching 48), I think about hanging it up after every one. But then NBC will rebroadcast Kona and I’ll pickup Becoming an Ironman and think about how much I like doing IM’s even though I suck at them.
So my advice would be to pick something that feels fun to do. It doesn’t have to be SBR. Is there a marathon somewhere that sounds like fun? Maybe, gasp, throw some lifting in to a swim and run set of workouts just to mix things up.
One advantage I have now is that since I am old no one really cares about how fast I go, just the fact that I survive the day seems to be a big deal. I think everyone is just waiting on the e-mail to come out that I died during the race and where to send flowers.
I’ll let you know when I actually figure it out. I’ve done 8 and my regular routine is to eat until I gain 20 pounds then spend the next 6 months to a year trying to peel it back off.
OMG, THIS! I’ve only done 3 but for that month afterwards i’m antsy as hell thinking of lost fitness. for some reason i have always felt that i would be in better condition AFTER an IM than before (maybe because my last 2 have been disasterous wtih enterovirus for one and 1 month post typhoid for the other) so this year i’m flirting with the idea of doing an IM 8 weeks before the one I have planned. but i’m much older than you (i think once you hit your 50s your fitness goes in dog years) so not sure how that would fly. but really wanting to find out…
I usually take at least week off from bike/running although if I feel like it I swim after a few days. I go off my diet so lots of caffeinated drinks, tons of chips especially Doritos, ice cream and cookies.
At the 2 week mark I start running again as I like that more than biking. I plan on doing the Ben & Jerry’s 4x4 at the end of week 3. 
Lots of sleeping in too as well and spending time with friends/family…
I didn’t race an Ironman this year, or any long course tri due to a stress fracture, but I did race a bunch of sprints and a couple of olympics. It looks like my season wrapped up on a high note two weeks ago with a sprint on Saturday and a long course aquabike Sunday, both races were awesome. I was hoping to race one more sprint this weekend as a capstone to the season but it’s looking like I waited too long and registration has closed so now I’m kind of stuck in the “what do I do now” mode.
I typically schedule some road races over the winter and of course look forward to the 100 for 100 challenge but with a stress fracture I’ll be lucky to get back into running by December.
My challenge will be replacing racing goals with recovery goals. I think I’ll finish out this week as if i were racing this weekend, then completely shut it down for 1 week, followed by 1 week of unstructured easy training (swim/bike). By that time I will have been back to see the orthopedist and will hopefully have a recovery plan to focus on instead of winter racing goals.
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Spend the first 5-7 days like a rockstar/superhero on Facebook and Slowtwitch enjoying you sucess.
-
Spend 2 weeks of unstructured training, no running for 10 days. No goals and only very vague workouts plan for short swims. Ride at whatever watts and intensity I feel like. Mostly easy but hammer for a bit too. Whatever.
-
Set up my 2015 tentative race calendar, and ATP in Trainingpeaks for my 2 “A” races next season.
-
Get excited about what you can achieve this season and the process of building even more fitness and speed that you had this year.
I can’t wait to go on my first real run in 10 days (ran 3 miles last Friday… I just assume forget that experience, it was not pleasant, was too soon). Legs feel great.
For me, I’m in the best fitness of my life (A huge understatement) and next year could be my one shot in my life at racing in Kona, so I’m making the most of it… while living on a budget (most sprint races, limited or cheap travel)
After that in 2016, I’ll probably take that fitness and try and set a PR in the marathon.
Basically all this, finished my season two weeks ago, first few days I felt great with people congratulating me and loving the comments of “you ran a half marathon in WHAT, after cycling HOW FAR!!!”.
Couple of weeks of just easy work with no plan, with a few runs with my wife as she’s working towards being able to do a 5k.
Now I’m planning out 2015, looking at what went well this year and trying to build on it. I was down to start with but looking at 2013’s end of season I’m im much better shape, last year I was injured and thinking of dropping the sport all together, for 2015 I should be solidly in the top 10% and shooting for AG wins / podiums.
Instead of a creature of the early mornings, I turn into a creature of the night. I love music so I try and go to a show every weekend to make up for some lost time. Even though this is not exercise, it is doing something I love just as much as triathlon that I really don’t get to do at all during training and it gives me that “Ok, I got my fix” feeling which allows me to get back into working out once I am ready. I also start saying “yes” to friends, when the answer was always “sorry I cant”
After a few weeks I start going for short runs but take my dog and if he wants to stop and roll around or play fetch for a bit, I oblige.
Also after a few weeks, I start doing Bikram yoga for about 6 weeks with an occasional swim (no more than 1000 yards) or bike (no more than an hour easy spin).
By the time this is done, it is time to pick it up again and I feel refreshed but also excited to start.
Something I have observed is the more focused you are on the event versus the process of completing the event the stronger the blues become. It comes down to enjoying the process of training and getting fitter as much as you enjoy the actual race. I think burnout is inevitable if you are “race” focused.
But a little bit of the post race blues is pretty normal!
There are no bad answers in this thread! Catching up with family and friends, etc.
Last year after IMLT some of my buddies who also raced guided for visually impaired runners at the California International Marathon. It’s a great time to give back to the community. Another option is to volunteer at local fun runs (wearing your IM Wisconsin finishers shirt of course :-).
Took 1.5 weeks trip to Canada, picked blueberries out the door of the cabin, swam in the Winnipeg River a few times & kayaked watching American Bald Eagles fly overhead within feet of me. Then took a week & went to Michigan, did some jet skiing, more kayaking, ran only 1 x (no biking during any of this & just had 1 run). Did anything BUT training. Mentally & physically it’s good to just get away from it & fill it with family time, projects & relaxing with just enough spattering of exercise that you don’t feel too guilty. You worked hard most the year, enjoy your time off & realize tris are a lifestyle, but never forget to “live” in other parts of life.
Something I have observed is the more focused you are on the event versus the process of completing the event the stronger the blues become. It comes down to enjoying the process of training and getting fitter as much as you enjoy the actual race. I think burnout is inevitable if you are “race” focused.
But a little bit of the post race blues is pretty normal!
Great comment!
I noticed how easy my race felt all day because I had done a great job of building my fitness and learning what I was capable of.
I notice a lot of folks feel beaten down, sick of long rides, etc. Other than pool workouts, I looked forward to most all of my workouts. Each one had some purpose and got me closer to my goals and I could track the progress through races and key workouts all season.
Time off just makes me feel sort of fat & lazy. I know I need it, but I also was good about taking clearly defined recovery weeks all season too.
Took me about 3-4 weeks to full recover from IMMT, but it was my first. I just did workouts when I had energy and used more of an offseason non-SBR schedule. A month later I am fully recovered and will do a run focus.