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How to Recover From a Marathon in Record Time

How to Recover From a Marathon

Stretch it out. Credit: lululemon athletica

Stretch it out during the marathon, too. Credit: lululemon athletica

2. Mix it up mid-race. No matter what kind of course you picked, you can still consciously vary your stride when you start feeling tension and soreness — changing your stride length and rate of turnover. If you’re taking walk breaks anyway, try to use each walk break not just as a chance to take it easy, but as an opportunity to really stretch out your legs, especially those darn hip flexors. By lengthening your stride so that it’s almost a lunge walk, you’ll put your legs through a fuller range of motion and stretch out those tight hips. If you’re always taking short little steps, your hip flexors are going to tighten to that range of motion; you want to expand the range to avoid the “marathoner’s shuffle,” which is common at the end of a race. Don’t be afraid to even stop mid-marathon for a quick stretch break; if a 20-second stretch can help you pick up your pace by 10 seconds per mile (which is very likely), you’ll make up that time in just two miles. To save time, just make sure that you aren’t doing your full stretching routine but instead paying attention to which muscles are sore, and then doing a stretch or two specific to those muscles.

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