By now, nearly 60,000 people will have completed the London Marathon, one of the largest such races in the world.
Completing the 26.2-mile course will have taken its toll on the bodies of most of the participants, although recovery will vary depending on how much training they did beforehand. What will this year’s runners experience over the next hours, days and weeks?
The first hours
Once they are over the finish line, some marathon runners sink to the ground and stay there. “All they want to do is lie down, because their body’s giving out on them,” said Dr Richard Blagrove, a sports scientist at Loughborough University.
Any kind of activity that is more strenuous or goes on for longer than you are used to leads to “microtears” in muscle fibres.
These are not the same as a muscle strain or sprain – in fact they are a normal and helpful response to exercise. The repair process of the microtears is what causes muscles to increase in size and power. “In order to become fitter and stronger, you need a small amount of fatigue and damage,” said Blagrove.
But in the immediate aftermath, the microtears cause pain and stiffness. “They’ve got this really high level of muscle damage,” said Blagrove.
Another reason the runners will feel they can’t move is that they have almost used up the body’s main energy reserves, in the form of a starchy molecule called glycogen.
At some point in the race, a marathon runner’s body usually has to switch from using mainly glycogen to fat.
Releasing energy from fat is less efficient, and one idea is that runners notice this switch as it causes an increase in fatigue – called “bonking” or hitting the wall – which typically happens after about two hours. “You will be able to carry on, but you’ll be at a slower pace,” said Professor David Stensel, an expert on exercise metabolism at Loughborough University.
Glycogen is mainly stored in muscles, and to a lesser extent in the liver. When biopsies are taken from the leg muscles of people who have just run a marathon, almost all the glycogen has disappeared.
But, as soon as people start having snacks or sugary drinks, their glycogen stores start rebuilding. “You might not feel like eating anything, but a drink with sugar in it helps to begin the recovery process,” said Stensel.
The first days
Microtears in the muscles mean that people stay feeling sore all over for some days. “Even the best trained runners in one to three days after the race will feel quite a bit of soreness,” said Blagrove.
“Those that are less trained and finishing further down will probably have worse soreness, and that will probably peak after two or three days.”
Any more serious injuries may start to make themselves known too. These might include muscle strains – when there is tearing in larger bundles of fibres – and shin splints, a dull aching over the front of the lower leg caused by inflammation of the muscles, tendons and bones.
Other injuries may include feet and ankle problems, as well as runner’s knee – when the kneecap rubs against the bottom of the thigh bone, causing pain and sometimes a rubbing or grinding sound.
The first weeks
While those with serious injuries will take longer, most people will start feeling better over the next one to three weeks. “After about a week, most people’s perception is that they would have almost fully recovered from it. But we know deeper down, there’s going to be connective tissue and damage to bones that hasn’t fully recovered,” said Blagrove. “Those will usually take up to three weeks.”
“As a rule of thumb, we say it takes as many days as the number of miles that you’ve run to recover from the event. So for a marathon it might take up to 26 days.”
Afterwards, runners are unlikely to maintain their level of cardiovascular fitness, but research suggests that if people keep up just half their previous level of training they can maintain fitness for a surprisingly long time.
“If people completely stop you drift back into a less fit and a bit of an unhealthy state within a month or two,” said Blagrove. “But if they reduce down what they were doing by about half, they can still stay just as fit and healthy, without the time burden associated with marathon training. So it’s always good for people to keep a little bit going.”
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