You finished your Big Race. Now what?

You decide to take up running. And it’s hard, but you have made a commitment, so you keep running because you are determined to become active and make a change in your life. And after a few days, weeks, two, three months, it gets a little easier, so you keep running. And, eventually, it becomes a habit, and most of the time, at least, you look forward to going out on your run. And now you are faster and you can run farther than you did when you started, and you’re feeling pretty good about yourself. So you think about taking up a challenge: a 5K or 10K race; a half marathon, marathon, trail race, ultramarathon; whatever.
You find a training plan. And you follow the plan: running in the cold, heat, dark, rain; running with friends, alone; running on great days and horrible days; running with a cold, with an injury, through an injury. And then you miss a training day, or two, or three, and you wonder if all of your effort has gone for nothing. And all the while, the race—the date circled in red on the calendar—is getting closer and closer. You engage your friends and family by your enthusiastic posts about the day’s run and your current progress. You post a running countdown for the upcoming Race Day. You wonder about what you should eat; how you should hydrate; what brand of running shoe you should buy; what you should wear on race day, and if you will finish.
Race day: you stand at the starting line, arms crossed against the cold, in the dark of the morning;  looking about you wonder why everyone else looks so calm, so ready, so fit. You wonder why you feel none of these things. Finally, the race director mumbles a few words that nobody can hear, and nobody cares about; then, a horn or whistle blows, and you’re off and running. Soon, the initial excitement and nervousness wear off, you find your rhythm, and, you’re just running; there are easy parts and hard parts, but the weeks of training pay off: the finish line looms in the distance, and, then, it’s there, and then you finish. You have a race shirt, a finishing time, the photographs, maybe a medal; your family greets you at the finish line; you Tweet; you Facebook. And now it’s over. That which you thought could never happen, happened.
Maybe you’re ecstatic for a while, maybe even a long while. Or when you finish you thought—Huh, I expected a lot more. Either way, you discover that the training was really the best part: the discipline, recording the miles, sharing your trials and tribulations. The race was good and fun and exciting and worth doing, but now you no longer have a reason to run: no schedule, no training, no goals. So now what?
You have to do it again, but not necessarily right away. According to Marlene Cimons in her article from Runner’s World, “Life after 26.2”:
·         Keep it short—Set new running goals but something shorter. Work on becoming faster at a shorter distance. The recovery from workouts will be quicker, and the novelty of a shorter distance can help revitalize your running juices.
·         Join a club—a running club is a great resource for support, advice, and motivation. You can recount your adventures in the Big Race over and over again without getting that glassy-eyed look from non-runners. Swapping stories alone can help when you run that race or a similar sometime in the future.
·         Experiment—you may be eager to get back into running, but take it slowly so that you fully recover. And during that process, play around with cross training: do some swimming, bicycling, yoga, or resistance training.
·         Bring home a puppy—or “renovate the house, or book a trip to an exotic location. The point,” says Cimons, “is to set an important and time-consuming non-running goal for after the marathon. This way, you’ll have something to look forward to after you cross the finish line.”
And if your Big Event was something less than a marathon, then scale accordingly. Take less time off, plan a mini-vacation, or tackle a smaller project.
But you should absolutely join a running club—like mine. The South Valley Running Club, here in Morgan Hill, San Martin, Gilroy and surrounding areas has grown to about 150 members and is going very strong. When I helped found the club 8 or 9 years ago, we started out with 35 members. The club holds group runs during the week, both road and trail, we have a monthly club meeting and social, we put on the Bill Flodberg Mt. Madonna Challenge in August, and we raise money for college scholarships for local high school runners. We are a diverse group of men and women who are passionate about running and eager to help others discover and fuel their own running enthusiasm. Anyone can join our Facebook Group, under South Valley Running Club. And anyone is welcome to join us on our weekly runs whether a member or not. But as long as you’re running anyway, you may as well join the club and instantly have 150 running partners. Details can be found on our website—www.svrchome.org.
Whatever you do after your Big Race, don’t stop running. Your journey has just begun.