I ran my first marathon 18 days ago. My 15-week training block went incredibly well. I ran a tune-up half marathon 6 weeks before the race, felt amazing, and ended up with a new PB (1:31). I also recovered very well afterwards and had some really strong marathon workouts after the half. All my estimations (Runalyze, Intervals, Garmin) kept improving throughout the whole block until tapering.
The taper, however, didn’t feel great. My heart rate was much higher than usual, and something felt off, but I thought it was probably just “maranoia.”
The race itself went okay. My A-goal was sub-3:23 and my B-goal was sub-3:30. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a really hot day (the first hot day of the year). I finished in 3:26 (4:53/km), which I’m still happy with.
After the marathon, I took three full days off. Then I tried an easy 20-min run, but didn’t feel good, so I decided to take a few more days off. About a week after the marathon, my right calf started to hurt. Since then, I’ve only done some very easy short runs (20–25 min) and a bit of cross-training.
Today I tried my first run with 1 km at a slightly faster pace. My leg still didn’t feel great, but interestingly I didn’t notice much difference between easy pace (6:00/km) and slightly faster pace (5:00/km). What really shocked me was my heart rate. I only ran 1 km at 5:00/km and already hit threshold HR. It felt really hard, and I honestly can’t understand how I was able to run an entire marathon faster than that pace just 18 days ago. Normally, I would do threshold workouts around 4:15/km for several kilometers.
My original plan was to do 8 weeks of Norwegian singles and race a few 5Ks before starting my next marathon block for an autumn marathon in October. It’s really frustrating to feel like I’ve lost all my fitness within just a few weeks.
Has anyone experienced something similar or have any advice?