Post race depression - is this normal

Yes, normal.  Time for a new goal!

P.S.  Congrats!!!

1. CONGRATULATIONS!!! That's incredible! The journey, and the culmination.

2. Yes, of course it's normal. You hit an incredible peak--it is only natural now that you must come down.

3. The remedy is to pick your next goal and cement it in some way--sign up for a race, or mark it on your calendar--something else to look forward to, even if it's small.

I solve this problem by almost never running a race without already being registered for the next one

Has worked for me so far.

And achieving a long term goal does not make me feel depressed. It puts me on a cloud for at least a month. (Go read my report from the Tucson Marathon if you think I am BS'ing you)

Endurance Sports is by it's very nature, an exercise in delayed gratification. This just means that when we do achieve a big goal, (And yours was huge) it is all that much sweeter.

BTW: Huge congratulations for running your Sub-2 Half. That is a very big deal especially given that you took ~6 minutes off of your HM Time to do it. Means your getting a lot faster.

If your fresh out of goals, I might suggest that your just lacking a bit of imagination was to what is really possible for you

I hope it's normal, cuz I felt the same way after the 10-Miler. That was a HUGE thing for me - my longest run ever, didn't think I could do it in the first place, was sick for a week and a half prior AND managed to pull off a somewhat respectable time. I was super-psyched that day and the next day and then totally crashed mid-week. I also got really antsy after like 2 days, and felt like I needed to go out and do it, or something like it, as soon as possible.

Racing is like crack - even for those of us who aren't awesome.

Its funny (not in a ha! ha! sort of way) - my next race happens to be the Boston Marathon, one week from today.

I started out with 2 goals: (1) sub 2 hr Half Mary and (2) sub 4 hr Marathon.

I finished yesterday feeling very relaxed and surprisingly strong (like I could have kept going a lot longer).  And the weather is predicted to be around 50 degrees next week, so there is a very strong chance that with a huge gut-check, I can run sub 4 hrs at Boston.

I've been wondering today what kind of depression spiral I'll go through if I accomplish both of my original lifetime goals in a period of 8 days. 

I'm expecting to find out what lies ahead b/c I'm planning on running sub 4 at Boston.

It's funny that you posted this.

I was just glancing at your logs and noticed that your heading to beandown. Based on your training I might suggest that you still have a lot of headroom to work with.

Sub-4 seems like a reasonable goal for Boston but your definitely gonna have to work for it. Remember the late race hills are there waiting to pounce on the runners who paced a bit too aggressively in the first part of the race.

Boston is a tough course and 26.2 is a lot of space and time where stuff can get very pearshaped. Just be sure to have a backup goal in mind if your race goes into speed wobble.

If you make it to Heartbreak hill and your still on target or even a bit behind, go for broke and leave it all on the course. If you get RunnersWorld, go read Amby Burfoot's Boston Marathon Race Report in this month's issue. Definitely worth it

Yay - good luck! I miss Boston - I used to live in and around Back Bay so I always used to wander a few streets over and sit somewhere and watch the last bits of the marathon (one year, it actually went past my apartment building). One year it was like 90 out, and I got sunburned just sitting and watching - can't imagine what it was like. If you're lucky, you'll have the "other" usual Boston springtime weather which is 50 and rainy, but sans the rain

I only read that far before thinking.  ST Frick U, if I only had 2 weeks of training when I started there would have been NO WAY I would have broke 20 minutes for 2 miles.

Oh yeah, congrats on your anti-climatic climax.