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JRF 5K2026Race Buddy
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The first hour

  • 0–10 minKeep walking. Do not sit, do not lie down. Medal and photos on the move
  • 10–45 minFluid with sodium first, then 60–80 g carbohydrate — the finish-area drink and fruit count
  • 45–90 min20–25 g protein alongside. Out of wet kit into something dry
  • MiddaySleep if it comes. An 02:35 alarm is a real sleep debt
  • AfternoonEat often. Keep drinking. Walk 10–15 min

Dizziness, confusion, stopping sweating, or a headache that will not settle is not a recovery question. Medical tent, immediately.

No ice bath, no NSAIDs. They sit together because they do the same thing — damp the inflammation down — and after a race that inflammation is the repair signal, not the damage.
  • It blunts the adaptation. The inflammation that follows a hard effort is the body starting to repair and strengthen the tissue. Ice it flat and the adaptation goes with it — on high weekly volume, 80–100 km, letting that cycle run is how structural durability gets built in the first place
  • It closes the delivery route (vasoconstriction). Cold water clamps the blood vessels down hard. In the same 10–90 minute window the muscle wants blood flowing as freely as possible to move the carbs, protein and sodium you just took in — narrow the vessels and glycogen refills slower and the waste clears slower
  • Your core temperature is not steady yet. Straight after a maximal effort, thermoregulation is fatigued and vulnerable, and forcing a dehydrated body into ice water risks thermal shock. That is why the line above says dry kit — it brings the core back gradually, and safely
NSAIDs are the firmer no. Anti-inflammatories after a hard endurance effort are a kidney question when dehydration is in play, not a soreness question.

The research behind this

1 · It blunts the adaptation

  • Ice bath. Roberts et al., The Journal of Physiology (2015) — the landmark trial. Cold-water immersion after training damps the anabolic signalling down, and over months leaves less hypertrophy and less strength than the same training without it
  • NSAIDs. Lilja et al., Acta Physiologica (2018) — anti-inflammatories suppress the COX and prostaglandin response. That response is what wakes the muscle's satellite cells, the cells that rebuild and thicken a fibre after the micro-trauma of a hard effort

2 · It closes the delivery route

  • Fuchs et al., Journal of Applied Physiology (2019–2020) — cooling, capillary blood flow and muscle protein synthesis. Cold drives hard peripheral vasoconstriction
  • Narrow vessels carry less: amino-acid and carbohydrate uptake into the muscle measurably drops, so glycogen refills slower and repair slows — in exactly the window where the muscle most wants the blood

3 · Core temperature is not steady yet

  • Tipton, Aviation, Space, and Environmental Medicine — the cold shock response. Sudden immersion triggers a gasp reflex and a spike in heart rate and blood pressure
  • After an endurance race the central nervous system is fatigued, the body is dehydrated and blood volume is down — a poor moment to ask the cardiovascular system to absorb that. Running medicine points the other way: gradual cooling, light active recovery, out of the wet kit

4 · NSAIDs and the kidneys

  • Lipman et al. (Stanford), Emergency Medicine Journal (2017) — a hard warning out of a study in ultramarathon runners
  • Long distance always dehydrates to some degree, and that alone cuts blood flow to the kidneys. The body defends filtration by releasing prostaglandins to widen the renal vessels — and NSAIDs block prostaglandin production, so the defence goes with it. Dehydration + NSAID + long distance is the standing recipe for acute kidney injury

Summaries of published work, here so you can look it up yourself — not medical advice. If you take anti-inflammatories for a diagnosed condition, that is a doctor's call, not Race Buddy's.

Days 1–7

Soreness is not the signal. Enthusiasm is. Feeling good on day 3 is the classic way to turn a good race into three weeks of nothing.

Sun 25No running. Walk. Eat. Sleep
Mon 26No running. Walk 20–30 min if it feels good
Tue 27DEBRIEF (below). Optional 15–20 min very easy jog, only if nothing hurts
Wed 28Easy 20–30 min at conversation , or nothing
Thu 29Rest or walk
Fri 30Easy 30–40 min. No target of any kind
Sat 31Easy 40–50 min, or rest. No long run

Week 2 follows your training plan — let the debrief shape it, not the finish-line high.

The next start line

A start line is the most reliable way to turn an into a race. A bib, a crowd and a clock make restraint feel wrong — a that looked sensible on Tuesday feels slow with a number pinned to your chest.

If you have another race in the weeks after this one, decide now what it is — a race, or a long run with a bib. If it is the long run, write the ceiling down today, slower than your own training long runs, because it will not get written on that morning.

Debrief — while it is still accurate

Write it down within a day or two, before the memory softens. The questions that matter:

  • Where did it get hard, and what ended first — legs, breathing, or willingness? Training cannot answer that. The race answered it. Write it down
  • Did the bank hold — a controlled first 2.5 km in the dark, and the fast half cashed from the south-west corner home?
  • Breakfast, gels, drinking — what would you repeat, and what would you change?
  • Peak heart rate seen, if you track it — the most honest max-HR data point you own