Ep #10: Post-Race Letdown Syndrome

Welcome to The Not Your Average Runner Podcast. If you’re a woman who is midlife and plus sized and you want to start running but don’t know how, or if it’s even possible, you’re in the right place. Using proven strategies and real-life experience, certified running and life coach Jill Angie shares how you can learn to run in the body you have right now.

You are listening to episode 10 of The Not Your Average Runner Podcast. I’m your host, Jill Angie, and in this episode, we’re going to talk about Post-Race Letdown Syndrome, how you can get a free bra from me now, and my favorite recipe book for running fuel. So whether you’re a brand-new runner or an experienced pro, or maybe even just contemplating it because all your friends are doing it, you are in the right place.

Now I’m sitting here right now in my closet talking to you and each week I often wonder what you’re doing when you’re listening to the podcast. Like, are you out running? Or are you driving to work in your car? Or maybe you’re hanging out at Starbucks with a cup of coffee. Like, whatever it is, I hope you’re enjoying yourself, and I actually like to imagine you on a gorgeous running trail, sort of happily running along in the sun, at a perfect 68 degrees with the wind at your back, and maybe even some unicorns trotting along next to you.

And actually, if that is the case, please invite me to come running with you for real because that sounds like fun. But seriously, wherever you’re listening right now, I just want to take a moment to thank you so very much for being a loyal listener. We are on episode 10 already, I can’t believe it, and it has been a true honor and a privilege to be in your ear each week, and I’m grateful that you want to spend that time with me. And so this is just my moment to say thank you so much. Oh, also tell all your friends.

Alrighty, so the Curvy Coach is on hiatus this week so I can tell you about a fun contest that I’m running with Enell Sports Bras. Now, as you know, Enell is my favorite running bra because they provide amazing support for C cups and larger. And I’m an H cup and I swear to god, when I’m running in one of these things, there’s no bounce, there’s no movement whatsoever. They’ve made all the difference for me in running. They just made it comfortable. They made it possible.

And I love them so much that I wrote about them in my first book. I wrote about them in my second book, and I think I even mentioned them in my third. And I honestly, I tell everyone I know about them no matter who they are. Sometimes I embarrass myself by walking up to strangers and saying, “You know, this would be a great bra for you to run in if you’re uncomfortable,” but that’s my problem.

Anyway, a couple times a year, Enell releases a limited-edition color, and I am super proud to say that I have every single one they’ve ever released. And last week, they actually released what might actually be my favorite one of all, the raspberry splash.

So it’s this deep hot pink, almost purple-y pink, and it’s a pink and black pattern and it is their first patterned bra yet, and it comes in both the regular and the racer back version and I’m super excited about it. I’ve already gone running in mine like, three times, and I love it.

So I was lucky enough to do the reveal for them live on Facebook last Thursday, March 1st, and now I have two of them to give away to a lucky podcast listener. So all you have to do to enter the contest is post a photo or a video on Instagram showing yourself with a current sports bra of yours.

Now, it could be your favorite Enell, or it could be a bra that’s on its last legs, or one that doesn’t support you, like something that you think like, this is the reason I need an Enell, right? Whatever it is, you don’t actually have to be wearing it. You can just show it but do a picture or a video of yourself and your bra on Instagram. And the more creative, the better.

And then – and this is really the important part. I want you to tag Not Your Average Runner, and tag Enell Sports Bras, and then use the hashtags #raspberrysplash and #NYARPodcast. So if you – you need to use both of those hashtags and both of those handle tags to be entered in the contest to make sure I can find you on Instagram.

Now, on March 15th, I’ll draw two winners live on Facebook on The Not Your Average Runner page, and you’ll have your choice of either the regular bra or the racer back bra in the new pattern. So go enter the contest right now, stop what you’re doing and go enter the contest, or wait until you finish listening to the podcast, of course, and get yourself a free bra.

So full instructions for entering the contest are also included in the show notes, and there’s also a link there to check out the new bra on the Enell website. Next week on Curvy Coach, I’ll be answering a question from Sheila about post-run soreness. So make sure you come back for that.

And if you want to get your own question answered, all you have to do is email me at podcast@notyouraveragerunner.com. I pick one each week – almost each week to read and answer, and you can ask me anything. If I pick your question to answer on the show, I’ll also send you a Not Your Average Runner car magnet. So yay for that.

Now on to our main topic of the week. So if you are a brand-new runner, you may not have experienced this yet, which is actually a great thing because that means that you’re going to be prepared when and if it happens. But if you have been doing races for a while, especially long ones, like a half marathon or a full marathon, or even an ultra-marathon, you’re going to know exactly what I’m talking about.

I call it Post-Race Letdown Syndrome. It’s like a long word for it but it’s really that feeling that you get after you’ve trained for months for a really big race, and it might be your goal race for the year or whatever, it might be a new distance, and you finish the race, maybe you go out to celebrate right afterwards, but then you sort of feel sad or letdown, or just kind of out of sorts the next day, or maybe even for weeks afterwards. And you’re like, “Why am I so depressed? Why am I so sad about this?”

Like, it’s confusing because when you’re training, the whole time you’re training and then on race day you’re thinking, “Oh, I’m going to be so proud when I’m done with this. I’ll finish this race and then I’ll be able to feel accomplished and happy and excited.” I mean, it’s really the pinnacle of your achievements so far, right? Especially if it’s a new distance.

So that’s often what we’re thinking when we’re doing the training is how this race, finishing this race is going to make me feel so great. Or you might be thinking during the training, “I can’t wait to be done with this fucking training because it’s driving me nuts,” right? But either way, you’re anticipating that the race itself is going to make you feel amazing, right? Proud, happy, accomplished, and likely motivated to keep training.

But then for some people, I mean, for some people they go through it no problem, they have – you know, they feel amazing after the race, but there’s always a few of you, when the race is over, you don’t seem to be able to access those feelings. And that kind of sucks because why else do we do these races if it’s not to feel good about ourselves?

So it can be even more frustrating if you ran a really great race. Maybe you set a personal record, but you’re still kind of feeling down about it. So if you’re wondering why you’re not walking around smiling from ear to ear after you finish a big race that you’ve been training for, why running doesn’t sound like fun, why it seems like a chore, we’re going to talk about that all – all of that today.

So I mean, you’ve just finished one of the biggest goals of your life and it’s disconcerting when your emotions don’t seem the match the achievement that you’ve just completed. So the first thing I want you to know is that this is completely and totally normal. It happens all the time. It really does, and there are a few reasons for it, and there are definitely ways to get beyond it.

So we’re going to talk about two pieces of the puzzle today. The first is replenishing your body. So this is sort of step one. After you’ve had a long race like this, the first thing to remember is – especially if it was your first time doing this distance is that your body is going to go into recovery mode. You just pushed yourself hard, and your amazing body stuck with you through all the training. It said, “We’re going to get through this.”

But then afterwards, the race is over and your body’s like, “Alright, it is time to power down.” So that is part of the reason that running feels hard. After you’ve completed a long race, you’ve just finished this huge effort, you’ve used up pretty much all your resources, it’s now time to just chill out and let your body do the word of regenerating.

And this is actually part of training. This rest period after a race, this regeneration period is part of the training cycle. And because a race takes such mental effort, your brain is also tired. Like, you’ve just spent months probably, like three months maybe, depending on the length of the race, maybe four, maybe five, maybe more. Your brain has been on task that whole time, like, figuring out when you’re going to get your long run in, making sure that you get out of bed and that you keep doing your training, even on the days when you don’t want to.

It takes a lot of mental energy to get through that. And so after this big race is done, your brain is also like, “Hey, we need a moment. Let’s turn on some Netflix, let’s read a book, let’s stop thinking about this race.” But the problem comes into play when you start thinking, “Oh, I should feel differently than I do.”

You start believing there’s something wrong because it’s been a week after your race and you’re still not interested in running, right? And that starts this really uncomfortable cycle where you start thinking, “I’m just going to force myself to get back into it.” And of course, it’s hard, and you feel even worse because your body’s like, “We’re not ready yet.”

So right here and right now, I’m giving you permission to take a week or more off from running after that first half marathon, or that first full marathon that you’re doing. I want you to just decide ahead of time that it is okay, that it is part of your training. Like, this is me, your coach, telling you right now that that relaxation and recovery period after that long race is part of your training. I want you to think of it as mandatory.

You’re not slacking. It’s nothing like that. It’s tactical recovery. You can totally go out and take a couple walks, go out, walk a couple miles every day, like, keep your body moving if you want to do that, if it feels good to you, totally fine. Go for a swim, go for a bike ride, take a hip-hop class. Like, do something fun.

But if you truly don’t want to run, if you think, “Putting on my running shoes is the last thing I want to do right now,” don’t run. Now, I know what you’re thinking. I know it, I can feel you thinking it right through this microphone. You’re thinking, “If I take a week off, I will never get back to it.” Right? You’re afraid that if you drop a habit for just a couple days, that’s it, it’s all over.

And that’s also not true. You will get back to it, and you’re going to feel a lot better if you give yourself that break. You’re much more likely to get back to it if you give yourself true permission to rest up for a bit. And I mean real permission. Not like, “Oh yeah, but it’s okay, but secretly I’m pissed at myself for taking the week off.”

That’s not permission. That is just beating yourself up. I mean more like, “I’m deliberately avoiding running for a week after my race as part of my training so my body can rest up and I can come back and start training for the next one,” or keep on running or whatever it is you want to do.

Now, during that time, I want you to get lots of sleep, drink lots of water, eat lots of healthy food, take care of your blisters, get a massage, do some yoga. I want you to stretch a lot every single day. These are all training assignments, okay? Allow yourself to luxuriate in the self-care.

And like I said, it might take a week, it might take two, it might even take three. I mean, if you ran your first marathon, three weeks is not uncommon to rest up a little bit. I promise there’s going to be that moment when you suddenly know it’s time. Like, it might be when you’re driving to work and you see someone running down the sidewalk and you say to yourself, “I cannot wait to come home tonight and go running.”

And that’s the moment when you know like, alright, let’s do this, we are ready. So be patient with yourself. The feeling will come back. If you’re feeling weird or out of sorts or running feels hard or you’re not excited about it, nothing’s wrong with you. It’s completely normal. Just give yourself the space to say, “Yep, I expected this to happen. It’s all good.” Just don’t force it. Let it come back on its own.

If you allow your body and your brain to actually miss running – because absence makes the heart grow fonder. So give yourself the break so that you won’t resent running the meantime, because I promise, it will be right there waiting for you when you’re ready.

So that’s step one, and that is really – I mean, we talked a little bit about your mind, but it was mostly about letting our body and your energy kind of come back from this big event. For some people, that is more than enough to get out of the funk. But some people will need to do a little bit more mind management. So we’re going to move on to step two.

And you’re letting your body recovery while this is all happening and allowing your mind to relax and not focus so hard on running. And that – I think we underestimate how much mind energy it takes when we’re training to keep ourselves going. And we don’t really give ourselves a lot of credit for that. We’re pretty quick to beat ourselves up if we miss a training run, but nobody says to themselves, “I’m so amazing because I haven’t missed a training run in a month,” right?

So if you’re still feeling out of sorts, even after you’ve done a lot of recovery of your body and kind of just given your brain a chance to rest, I mean, sometimes it’s because you’re not happy with your finish time or your splits or how you ran the race, or you might just – again, you might actually just be frustrated because you thought you’d be excited about running after the race, and instead you’re cranky or sad.

This is when we need to start working on your thinking. And just sort of a warning, I’m probably going to ramble a bit on this topic because I’ve got a lot to say. So just be warned. Okay, one thing I know for sure is when you focus everything you’ve got on training for a race, it consumed all of your waking thought, especially in the weeks right before the race when you start having these like, “Oh my gosh, what’s it going to be like? Am I going to finish? Is it going to be hard? Is it going to be raining? What should I wear?”

Like, a million questions come up. You’re really putting a lot of mental energy into it, and so that’s your habit in the weeks leading up to the race. And then you have the race, and then the next day, you don’t have that requirement of spending all the time, all your brain space thinking on it. It feels weird. It feels like something is missing. Like something’s just not right and you can’t put your finger on it.

And again, this is totally normal because you’ve spent a lot of time developing that habit of thinking about the race all the time. What’s it going to be like to cross that finish line, what you’ll wear, will it be hard, all of those questions. And if you’ve been spending a lot of time obsessing over it in the days and weeks leading up, that starts to become your new normal.

And you actually get a lot of good feelings from thinking about the race because you’re like, “I’m going to be so happy when it’s done,” and, “It’s going to be so much fun to cross that finish line,” like, there’s all kinds of emotions that are generated within you from all of the thinking that you’re doing about the race.

And the race happens, and you no longer have to expend that energy. And this habit that you’ve developed, your brain is like, “Wait a minute, what just happened? We were spending all this time and energy in thinking about the race. Now we’re not doing that anymore,” and your brain is kind of like, “Alright, well I better get busy focusing on something else.”

And we all know what happens when we don’t think on purpose. You learned that last week in episode nine when we talked about inner mean girl. When we think on purpose, we can choose our thoughts, we can decide how we want to think and feel about any circumstance.

But if you suddenly had your brain like is used to thinking about the race and then the race is over and you haven’t given your brain something else to think about, it’s just going to go right to the negative. And I mean, honestly, I think that’s why a lot of people sign up for another race right away because they miss that training, they miss that thinking about how much fun the race will be, the anticipation and the excitement. And it’s uncomfortable when that goes away.

So they’re like, “Okay, well I better change the circumstance, I better sign up for another race so I can start thinking about it again.” But if you don’t want to sign up for a race right away, you don’t have to be stuck with those weird feelings.

And first of all, let’s get this out of the way. It doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with you that you’re not excited after you’ve run this big race. I’ve talked to so many clients that are just like, first of all, they’re sad because the race is over, and then they’re mad at themselves for being sad.

So they’re just like, okay, here’s this pile of shit, and then I’m just going to put some more shit on top of it because that sounds like fun. So the weird feeling doesn’t mean anything is wrong, it just means your brain is operating exactly as it was designed to operate, which is kind of a good thing.

So here’s the way I like to think of it. I kind of think it’s grieving the end of the whole experience. And I’m assuming you enjoyed your race, even though the training was hard, and the race might have been hard. And so I’m assuming that you enjoyed the whole experience as a whole. So you did this thing, you put your heart and soul into it, and now it’s done. And yes, you got the bragging rights and all of that, but the race itself is not the entire experience.

You spent all of the training time that leads up to it, that’s what makes it so memorable. So when that focus is gone, it’s natural for us to kind of grieve it a little bit, right? That’s where that sadness comes in. And I want you to give yourself the space to do that, to just be like, “Okay, I’m grieving this activity that’s no longer in my life. It doesn’t mean I won’t have it again, but I can take a moment and say that was really fun and I miss it.”

It’s okay to miss that experience. And again, I can’t say this enough. It doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with you, it’s actually really, really normal. So let yourself grieve. Take note that you just completed this huge thing and give yourself a moment to breathe and absorb it. You don’t have to jump into something else right away to avoid feeling all of those feelings. You can just allow them.

So when we go into training for a race, thinking that the race itself is the pinnacle of the experience, and believing that finishing the race is what’s going to make us happy, we’re kind of setting ourselves up a little bit for this letdown in the first place. I mean, sure, a race is definitely a celebration, it’s a great thing, and it’s hard. It’s a hard thing to do, especially if it’s like, your first marathon, right? There’s nobody saying that like, that’s not a big fucking deal.

But believing that the race itself is what gives us all the good feelings is where we go wrong. So the race itself, I want you to really hear me here, it is just one run among many. It’s just the last run of your training. It’s literally all it is. It might be the longest one, but finishing that race itself, in my opinion, the race day is easier than doing all the training required. The race is one day. The training is months.

And so that showing up day after day, like that to me is the real accomplishment and the real experience. And so you think the race is going to make me feel so great, but what you’re really missing is all of that whole experience. And so we run the race and we think we’re going to automatically feel amazing, and we don’t. And then it’s just this whole cognitive dissonance kind of gets started up in our brain and there’s drama.

So here’s what I want to do: I want to talk about some options to think differently after your race is over that aren’t going to take away the experience of feeling that sadness but are going to keep you from beating yourself up for feeling sad. So your thoughts about your training and everything you make it mean about you, and your thoughts about the race and everything you make that mean about you, however it happened, is what’s going to decode your feelings.

And I mean, god help you if you finished your race and you didn’t do as well as you wanted. So you not only have that weird letdown feeling that kind of cognitive dissonance of the sadness and the grief when you think you should be happy, you also have all your inner mean girl bullshit about how you’re a failure because of whatever terrible story she’s telling you.

And again, just to reflect on last week’s podcast, episode nine, you know you don’t always have to believe your inner mean girl. All you need to do is realize that you have options. Like, right there, giving yourself the space to say the inner mean girl is saying this, I can choose not to believe her.

So we’re going to talk about ways to figure out what those options are. So I’m going to give you some thoughts to think. You can think something like, “I did my best. I rocked my training. There were lots of fun things that happened along the race course, it was awesome to cross the finish line.” You can pick out a million things that happened on race day that were fun, and a lot of – you know, a lot more things that happened during your training that were also fun.

And when you think about those things and you remember them fondly, you’re going to feel much differently than if you’re thinking, “I wish I’d been faster, I wish I’d trained more, I thought I would feel better.” Because when you think those thoughts, you don’t feel so good.

And you might be listening to me right now thinking, “Well duh, Jill, of course I’ll feel differently if I’m thinking those two different sets of thoughts.” But what you believe is that those thoughts are the facts, those are just what happened, right? And that’s where I want to stop you.

Those two different sets of thoughts are literally just opinions that you have. The circumstance is you ran a race, you completed a race in x amount of time. Everything else after it is just an opinion that you have about the fact that you ran the race. So your opinion might be, “I was too slow,” when you look at your time. Somebody else might look at your time and say, “Wow, I wish I could run that fast.”

Like, that’s how I know it’s an opinion if different people might interpret it differently. And so opinions, which are your thoughts, are what determine how you feel. So if you have a shitty opinion, you’re going to feel pretty bad. If you focus your opinion on what went well, or you can even decide that things did go well, no matter what happened, like if you focus on the things about the race that you want to repeat, or that you’re excited about or whatever, you’re going to feel much better about it.

I mean, even if this was your slowest race ever, if it rained the whole time, if you have blisters covering your feet, you can still find things in that race that you can look at and say, “That was okay,” or, “That went really well,” or, “I’m really proud of that moment.”

So I want you to start looking at the whole experience as a way to create evidence of how amazing you are and build on that evidence. So other things that might have gone well, there might have been amazing bling that have nothing to do with your performance, there might have been amazing bling, there might have been beer at the finish line, your bestie might have ran the last tenth of a mile with you and crossed the finish line with you.

Like, it may be as simple as, “I was not well trained for that race but I still showed up to the start line, and I was scared as hell but I showed up,” right? I want you to really look at things critically and see how you can flip things over. So instead of looking at your race time and finding all the things that are wrong with it, look at your race time and find all the things that are right with it, and flip the script on yourself.

Honest to god, it really, really works. Like, your inner mean girl is programmed to look for all the things that are wrong. It’s just how your brain works. It’s just a habit that you’re in. So you need to deliberately think on purpose and look for all the things that don’t feed into her story. Look for all the things that don’t support her opinion that you suck.

Because your inner mean girl has that programming to constantly look for things that are wrong, but it really doesn’t serve you. Whether or not those things are true, focusing on them is going to create a lot of unhelpful emotion for most of you, and in most people, cataloging all your faults, all the things you’ve done wrong, does not result in trying harder the next time. It actually results in quitting.

Now, there are very few of you that might be listening that when something doesn’t go right like, you double down and you work harder the next time. Fair enough, and like, if that’s working for you I don’t want to take that away from you. But for most people, thinking about all the things we did wrong results in us feeling bad and quitting, and that’s the last thing I want you to do.

So I want you to spend some time, focus on working on your opinion about how everything happened in the race, what went well, what did you like, what do you want to be proud of. And by the way, like, you can be proud of whatever you want. You don’t have to have somebody else tell you to be proud of it. You get to decide for yourself.

So I want you to know that there’s a difference between objectively looking at your training and your performance, looking at the facts, right? I ran the race in this amount of time. This was my speed, this was my elevation, this was my heart rate. Like, all of that data, you can look at that objectively. I ran this many training runs, right? All of that is just math. And then you can look at your performance from the perspective of drama.

That’s kind of beating yourself up for not living up to your expectations. Same race, you can look at the math or you can look at the drama. Now, if you look at the math, you can decide how you want to improve next time, right? And then you say, “Okay, what do I need to do to change these results for next time?” If you look at the drama, you’re beating yourself up and then you’re going to feel bad and you’re going to quit.

So I want you to remember all of this after your next race because you get to decide how you feel. You don’t just have to feel awful after a race because you think, “I did terribly,” or you know, “There’s something wrong with me because I’m not feeling excited about it.” Like, you actually get to choose those thoughts and feelings.

So give yourself a moment to grieve, to feel sad if that’s how you feel, remember that it’s your thinking causing that, and you get to choose, like in that vacuum, after you’ve taken all of the energy that you’ve been spending on your training, like, your brain is in that vacuum. Doesn’t know what to think because it’s lost the habit of focusing on the training, like, decide on purpose what you’re going to think so that you can create your experience.

So your challenge for this week is actually create an evidence journal for yourself. And it can be just for running, or it can actually be for your whole life, right? I want you to start recording evidence of how amazing you are. Every time you do something amazing, I want you to write it down. It might be in a spreadsheet, it might be an actual journal, but if you’re trying to change a habit or improve in some area, or just work on self-confidence, I want you to take time and record the evidence that supports this new opinion that you’re trying to create for yourself.

Doesn’t matter how big or small it is. It might be, “Hey, I ran three times a week for a whole month,” or, “I got 10 seconds faster on my mile this week,” or, “I got out of bed this morning when I didn’t want to and I went running.” That is the stuff that I think is super helpful to start recording so that when your inner mean girl starts her stories, you can be like, “Hey, let me show you this book I wrote about how awesome I am.”

Okay, like I said, that got a little bit rambly towards the end there, but I have so much to say about how our thoughts create our whole experience, and I’m going to keep talking about it on the podcast in episodes to come. So I hope that was helpful for you and let’s move on to my current obsession.

Alright, this week I’m going to share with you a cookbook. Sounds funny because like, we’re not really a cooking show, we’re a running show, but one of the biggest pet peeves that I have is that running fuel that you buy at running stores is gross, right?

Like, especially gels. Like, what even is that? It’s like a little squeeze packet, you’re supposed to open it and squeeze this thing into your mouth when you’re running or like, goo and these gummy things, like, they’re all – I really think they’re all disgusting.

And a couple years ago, I started researching homemade endurance sport fuel and I came across this book called Feed Zone Portables, and it’s by Biju Thomas and Allen Lim. And this book – oh my goodness, it is packed. Packed with recipes that are basically bite-size foods that are designed to be, first of all, yummy, and made from real ingredients, and easily carried in like a fuel belt or in a pocket when you’re out running. And also designed to provide you with a ton of really powerful nutrition while you’re running.

So the book has tons of recipes, they’re all super easy, there are both savory and sweet options, and lots of them actually have ideas for modifying them to fit your own tastes. And they also have some gluten free and other food allergy considerations in the book as well.

And they give you instructions on how to store them in the freezer because like, the recipes might make 20 of them and you don’t want to take 20 with you on a run. Like, you might take two. So they’ll teach you how to store them and then also how to wrap them individually for easy transportation.

And so I actually tried several of the recipes, they’re all really, really, really good, and P.S., some of them have bacon. So if you are not a fan of the current state of running fuel in the world, I want you to grab a copy of this book and give the recipes a try, and like, let me know how it goes because it’s an awesome book.

Well my friend, our time is up again. And I just want to let you know that if you are excited about entering the Enell contest or if you want to know more about the book that I mentioned, or even download the transcript from this show so that you can read through it and maybe highlight it, take notes, you can find all of that in the show notes at www.notyouraveragerunner.com/10.

So this is episode 10, so you’re just going to go right over to that website and you can get all the links to everything. And if you’re anxious to get started with running, I do have a free one-week jumpstart plan to help you to exactly that. You’ll get your first week of workouts along with some tips to help you get started. I promise they’re super easy and they’re fun and anyone can do them.

So you’re going to head on over to www.notyouraveragerunner.com/start to download the plan. After you’ve done that, make sure to check your email and I’ll be dropping in on you occasionally to give you some advice. So that’s it for this week. I’m so glad you’re here and I’m so glad that we’re on this journey together. Bye.

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Not Your Average Runner Podcast. If you liked what you heard and want more, head over to www.notyouraveragerunner.com to download your free one-week jumpstart plan and get started running today.