Recovery and Reflection — What Sydney Taught Me, and How I'm Bouncing Back While Still Training
By Coach Nic Baxter | NBx Running Coach
I crossed the line in Sydney in 4:21:19.
If you've been following my Road to Sydney diary, you'll know that wasn't the number I set out to chase. I had a different goal.
But this is the honest, no-highlight-reel version of my running that I promised you at the start — so here's the truth. Sydney didn't go to plan. And I've walked away prouder of that race than I would have been of a lot of the ones that I have ran in the past. And let me tell you why.
The Race I Planned vs. The Race I Ran
As I shared in my last post, my hamstring flared up in the final days before the marathon. Not a full injury, but that unmistakable warning tightness that every experienced runner learns to respect. Right there, in the last week, I had a decision to make.
I could chase my goal time and gamble that the hamstring would hold. Or I could change the plan, protect the leg, and run a race I could actually finish strong and healthy, knowing that I have another 3 marathons to complete this fall.
So I changed the plan.
That is not the glamorous choice. Standing on a start line having trained through the summer for one number, it takes real discipline to let it go before the gun even fires. But I coach this exact decision constantly, and I'd be a hypocrite to preach it to my athletes and then ignore it myself when it was my own leg on the line. The race is one day. Your body has to carry you through the rest of the season, and the rest of your life.
What the Splits Told Me
Here's the part I'm genuinely proud of.
I came through halfway in 2:11:46 — and I ran the second half just over two minutes quicker. A negative split. Every 5K faster than the last from about the midpoint on, all the way to the finish, on a course with plenty of climbing to fight through.
That doesn't happen by accident, and it certainly doesn't happen when your ego is driving. It happens when you hold back early, trust your training, keep your effort honest, and let the race come to you. I protected the hamstring in those opening miles, stayed patient, and had something left to give when it mattered. I finished feeling strong rather than shattered. This, with another marathon now less than two weeks away, matters more than any time on the clock.
My goal is still out there. It hasn't gone anywhere. What I banked in Sydney was something arguably more valuable: proof that I can adapt under pressure, run a smart race, and come home healthy.
Recovery Doesn't Mean Doing Nothing
Now to the question I've had in my inbox all week: how do you recover from a marathon when you've got another one on the calendar in a fortnight?
It's a real and slightly unusual situation. As most runners race once a season and get to fully switch off afterwards. I don't have that luxury right now, with St George coming up fast, followed by NY just 4 weeks after. So my recovery has to do two jobs at once: repair the damage from Sydney, and hold onto the fitness I'll need for the next start line.
The mistake here goes one of two ways. Some runners sit on the sofa for two weeks and turn up to race two flat, heavy-legged and undercooked. Others panic, jump straight back into hard training, and turn up injured or exhausted. The sweet spot, or the "reverse taper," as I think of it, lives right in the middle. Gentle, deliberate movement that keeps the engine ticking over without ever asking the body to dig deep.
How I'm Actually Recovering
So here's what my two recovery weeks have genuinely looked like.
The running has stayed light and varied. I ran 41 miles the first week and 31 the second, but every step at an easy, restorative effort. I've deliberately mixed the surfaces too: road, trail, and treadmill. The trails keep the pounding down and my head happy, and the treadmill lets me control the effort completely on the days my legs need babying.
Strength training and PT have stayed in. This is non-negotiable, especially with a grumbly hamstring. Keeping up my strength work and physio protects the exact tissue that was warning me before Sydney, and it's the single best insurance policy I have for getting to St George in one piece.
And I've leaned hard into active recovery tools. Cryotherapy, my Normatec boots, Epsom salt baths, plenty of walking, and eating properly to actually fuel the repair. None of these are magic on their own. But stacked together, day after day, they're the quiet work that turns a trashed post-marathon body back into a race-ready one.
The Balancing Act — Recovering While Still Training
If you ever find yourself in this spot with back-to-back races, or simply returning to training after a big effort, here's what I'd want you to take from how I've approached it:
Let effort, not pace, lead the way. Every recovery run I've done has been governed by how I feel, not by a number on my watch. Some days easy is genuinely easy. Some days it isn't, and I back off further. Both are the right call.
Keep moving, but keep it gentle. Total rest has its place in the first day or two, but movement is what flushes the legs and holds your fitness. Walking counts. Easy miles count. The goal is to stay ready, not to build.
Protect the weak link. For me that's the hamstring, so strength and PT come before anything ambitious. Whatever your niggle is, recovery is when you tend to it, not when you test it.
Recovery is training. This is the mindset shift I want you to hold onto. The Epsom baths, the boots, the early nights, the honest easy runs, that's not time off from the work. That's the work. It's what lets you show up to the next start line able to run.
What's Next
St George is now less than two weeks away, and thanks to a patient race in Sydney and two deliberate weeks of recovery, I'm heading there healthy, fresh, and genuinely excited. Not chasing redemption, just ready to run.
I'll bring you along for that one too.
And if any of this resonates, if you're recovering from a race, coming back from a niggle, or trying to figure out how to train smart around real life, this is exactly what I help runners do every single day.
The finish line is one day. How you recover is what lets you keep finding new ones.
Coach Nic Baxter is an RRCA Level 2 Run Coach and ACE-Certified Personal Trainer based in Morristown, NJ. She helps women in their 30s, 40s and beyond run stronger, feel better and fall in love with every mile. She is currently recovering and training for St George on 3rd October.
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