Best Ways to Recovery After an Ultra
After a 100-mile running race, I can tell you what your 24 hours should (and should not) look like after an ultra event to get your body back to normal again.
After finishing Leadville, here’s what my next 24 hours looked like:
I flew out of a busy airport a few hours after finishing
Got home and went straight back to working with clients the next morning
Went grocery shopping and jumped right back into normal life
Safe to say that’s a pretty solid example of what not to do after racing 100 miles and I felt it!
When you cross that finish line, your body doesn’t just stop requiring regimen fueling. It just looks a little different than a few gels and a bottle an hour. Your job changes from staying topped off with fuel to consuming fuel that will give back to your muscles, brain, and energy systems to aid recovery and your overall health.
1. Fuel to Replenish, Not to Get Through
You’ve burned through your system’s energy storage and gone super deep, losing a serious amount of fluid and sodium, and breaking down muscle tissue for 10+ hours or days on end. One big meal at the finish line or a recovery shake doesn’t check the box.
A few things to focus on:
Fluids throughout the day: not just crushing a bottle of water right after you finish and calling it done. If you lack in hydration, it can hinder your ability to start working out again without injury.
Electrolytes and sodium, especially if you were out there a long time or in the heat
Consistent Carbohydrates to actually replenish glycogen, not just enough to feel full
Whole foods with protein to support the muscle repair that’s already underway
Berries, fruit, vegetables, and other antioxidant-rich foods to help with the inflammation and sore muscles.
This isn’t a one-meal/one day solution. Treat it like your training plan for the week. You have to keep refueling to get back in a great headspace and be healthy enough to start training again.
2. Sleep might be the biggest recovery tool you have
Sleep debt and stress going into race week now will show up after the race if you do not prioritize sleep. This can lead to injury and illness very easily (even for the pros).
“I got 7-8 hours last night, so I’m good” is not really the right lens to be looking through. It’s not all about one night, just like your training isn’t about one interval session. Prioritize sleep for several nights in a row, not just the one after the race, and actually create opportunities to sleep more than you normally would. Sleep triggers the growth hormone release and tissue repair your body needs most after a race. Cutting it short slows down muscle, immune, and nervous system recovery all at once. Go to bed earlier, take magnesium if you have been given instruction to and top off berries/tart cherry juice for a higher quality of sleep and less inflammation.
3. Your muscles feeling better doesn’t mean you are good to start training again
This is where I see athletes get injured the most.
After a massive effort (especially high impact), your cardiovascular system and muscles can start feeling ready again before your bones and connective tissues actually are actually ready to go again.
The exact timeline is different for everyone. It depends on the event, your training history, your experience level, how beat up you actually are, course profiles, and how much impact you incurred. There’s no universal number of days.
Don’t rush back into high impact activities just because you’re not sore anymore. Give your body enough time to actually repair, otherwise, a great race turns into a stress injury a few weeks later which can ruin a season or two.
4. Recovery is part of your training, not a time to check out
Athletes are genuinely bad at sitting still. You wake up feeling 20% better than the day before and immediately think you should walk, spin, lift, or “just do something.”
But recovery isn’t the absence of training — it’s a phase of it. Read that again. There’s a real difference between gentle movement that supports recovery (active recovery) and adding more stress on your body simply because you’re not good at slowing down. You don’t gain fitness from proving how fast you can get back into hard training.
5. Be honest about how you actually feel
Skip the arbitrary schedule — “one day off, easy ride, back to training.” Your body doesn’t read a calendar, so stop making the calendar your north star.
Instead, look at:
Sleep quality and resting heart rate
Appetite and general energy levels
Soreness/discomforts
Any localized bone, tendon, or joint pain
Motivation and mental fatigue
The hard part isn’t crunching numbers for recovery, it’s being honest with yourself about how you feel and if you truly feel back to normal or just less sore
