Paying attention to your warning lights
Catching yourself in the dangerous calm of a post-event slump
There is a real emotional and physical hangover from any big event in our lives. Whether it is a graduation, a new job, the birth of a child or, for we amateur endurance athletes, a major target race or event.
Those of you who have lived through training cycles for big events know what I’m talking about. There is an emotional and physical component to the post-event ennui. It varies by the event, the time of year and the season on your life. It can be a very personal thing, specific to the individual athlete. It’s not something to take lightly.
These slumps are effected by other things that are going on in your lives as well and this can be particularly dangerous when there is a resonance. A negative challenge at work or a relationship blip alongside the post-event emotional drop off can push people over the edge.
It helps to be ready and to recognize the symptoms of a post event slump. It is both physical and mental, and since the physical and the mental are intricately connected you need to monitor both and the intersection of both.
Let’s look at the mental part first.
To be fair, the emotional bump post event can be positive as well as negative. If you have a tremendously wonderful outcome from your event you can ride that emotional high for weeks. It’s a glow of success that translates into happiness and self-satisfaction. Feel free to ride that wave as long as possible.
The challenge is when there was not clearly defined victory to celebrate. Even if we are psychologically ok in our big brains the subconscious may see this as failure or at least a lack of resolution. There’s not much you can do about this except to utilize positive mental health practices.
- Give yourself some time
I’m guilty of not budgeting time to recover from big events. I have a history of running to the airport for a flight soon after crossing the finish line. This can be good; in that you are downplaying the significance of the event by making it just part of your routine and you’re moving on to the next thing.
It can be bad too.
If the outcome of the event was emotionally challenging, jumping on to the next thing without resolution is just delaying the inevitable. At some point that lack of resolution is going to fester and manifest in your life as a bout of emotional funk or even a physical problem.
For a major, milestone event, budget some mental recovery time. Let yourself sleep in for a couple days. Understand that you’re not going to be your best. Don’t over schedule yourself. Expect a bit of an event hangover and budget the time for it.
Another thing I’ve found is that the funk can be delayed by a few days. You’ll feel fine after the event, but then the funk will sneak up on you at some later point in time.
- Process it
Don’t ignore the event once you’re done. Don’t try to bury it and move on. Again, it will pop up to bite you later.
You have to actively process the emotional impact of that event. If it was a big deal for you then recognizes that and let your mind digest it. Play the event out in your head and look under the corners. Allow yourself to feel.
Don’t beat yourself up. Take a 3rd party view. Watch the event and the emotions like a movie playing for you to analyze. Get comfortable with it. Digest it. It’s ok to feel the emotional sting but try to be the observer of these emotions and don’t let them effect you directly.
- Talk about it
Depending on what type of person you are, your processing of the emotions of the event my be helped by talking through it with your friends or a coach. This can be a very cleansing process for people.
Write it up. Even if you don’t share your story publicly take the time to write it down. Don’t constrain the narrative just let it flow as it comes.
You’ll be surprised how much this helps and how interesting it is to re-read in a few months’ time form a future perspective. These write ups are a great gift to your future self because this post-event mental state is a temporary and fragile thing. It’s cleansing to get it out in the moment.
- Establish a clear path
I’ve always been a big fan of having my next thing scheduled before I go into that big event. This positions the event as a point on a continuum, not an end-point. It keeps you from the inevitable “What now?” moment, because you have the next thing already scheduled.
This is the mentally healthy trick of turning an event-based outlook into a lifestyle.
Of course there is a physical hangover as well.
Like the mental part, this may not manifest for a couple days. I’ve found that it takes a couple days for the adrenaline of the event to wash out and the physical ramifications start to show up for weeks after.
After an intense training cycle your body is going to be overbalanced or over tuned for that activity. These few weeks after the event are a major opportunity to get injured. You are most probably coming out of the training cycle with some niggles. This is when the hard effort of the event may have turned them from niggles into injuries.
Give yourself the appropriate physical recovery time that you, specifically you, need. Those rules of thumb, like ‘rest a day for every mile of the event’ are BS. I’m sorry, but it is specific to the athlete and their history. Some people bounce right back. Some people need time and therapy.
An excellent step for you physically, not right away, but within the first couple weeks after the event, go get a massage from an experienced physical therapist that works with athletes. Tell that person how you event went, how you are feeling and where the specific niggles are. Ask them to not just treat you but to evaluate your state so that you can treat yourself.
It’s tempting to get right back on the horse and do another event, but understand that as you extend the training cycle past your target you are running a much higher risk of injury.
The biggest challenge people have is ennui, boredom, burnout and lack of motivation after the event. I hear comments like “It just isn’t fun anymore…” or “I can’t bring myself to go out…” This is a mental fatigue from the long training cycle and the event itself coupled with the physical fatigue. The combination of the two is like a bad bout of mental flu sometimes.
The best advice I can give you is to look beyond the event. Have something out on the horizon to train for. Not necessarily the same event, but something, anything to keep you out of the Sargasso Sea of funkiness.
And, remember we GET to do this stuff. No one is making us. This stuff is a privilege.
Strap that shit back on and get out there.