While it's normal to feel like you're on a bit of an emotional roller coaster or moodier than usual after your moment of success, if your feelings of sadness become intense or persistent, seek professional help. Beyond that, though, simply talking out your feelings with another athlete or someone you love can be enormously rewarding. Dr. Silby says that too often we assume we're alone in our feelings, which is rarely true. She also suggests taking time to reflect on not just the achievement itself but also what you learned about yourself during the process as a whole and how it changed you for the better.
One thing I personally found helpful in the days after the marathon was turning my attention to all the things I now had more time to indulge in. I love cooking, but while I was training, I was usually too wiped out by Sunday afternoons to have any interest in trying out a new recipe in the kitchen. I missed my friends after ditching countless happy hours for cross-training sessions. I wanted to get back to the novel I was working on with fresh eyes.
Similarly, Minardi — my teammate who compared her marathon to a bad breakup — said one simple quote has helped keep her levelheaded. "One of the main lessons our coaches and other athletes stressed was that 'there is no finish line,'" she said. "Don't let achieving your dream end your story. Let it kick-start your journey. I'm ready for the next huge dream and the one after that and the 10 after those."
Dr. Hacker agrees that goal setting is an important part of warding off negative feelings and encourages putting a new plan in place before, or soon after, your major achievement. She suggests taking one of two approaches. You can set another new goal within the same "genre" of activity. So, if you just clocked your first marathon, sign up for a more challenging 26.2-mile course or start focusing on speed work to improve your race time. Alternatively, you can set your sights on a wildly different achievement, like following up a major weight-loss transformation by turning your focus to, say, learning how to play the guitar.
Dr. Hacker says that too often when we experience a postathletic achievement crash, we ask ourselves the wrong question. Instead of wondering, "Now what?" she says, try asking yourself, "What's next?"
