I had a couple of workouts to do today, and the first one was a short, thirty minute run at an easy pace.  The run should have been very comfortable, but my quads were still feeling the after effects of my recent race.  This got me thinking… how long does it take to recover from a race?

The time to recover, obviously depends on a lot of factors.  How long was the race?  How hard did I push myself?  What were the weather conditions?  Was I well trained going into the race?

For Ironman 70.3 Musselman, I was would say that I definitely raced very hard.  It was obviously a long race, but fortunately the weather conditions were very favorable.  I would also say that my training, going into the race, was not ideal.  Based on these factors, I would guess that it is going to take a full week, to completely recover.

In my experience, I recover within a few days when racing sprint or Olympic triathlons, and run races of a half marathon distance or less.  In contrast, it usually takes a couple of weeks to fully get over a full Ironman race, or a hard run marathon.

I find the best way to recover, is to eat well and sleep a lot.  It does also help, to do some easy effort training.  I find cycling the best recovery sport for me; running just beats up my legs too much.

How do you recover from a race?