23,000 Runner's Training and Recovery

The rural town of Hopkinton, Massachusetts, will throng with more than 23,000 runners this coming Monday for the start of the 121st annual Boston Marathon. The challenging 26.2-mile course will end in Beantown's Copley Square and after the celebration comes the all-important recovery period.

Even if you're not a runner yourself, there's good reason to mull over this advice from trainers: If you don't take the necessary downtime to properly recover, you're more likely to injure yourself and less likely to stay healthy.

After a marathon, it takes from two weeks to two months for runners' muscles to fully repair. It also takes a couple of weeks to bounce back from the overall physical stress of the race, which weakens the immune system and increases cellular damage due to oxidative stress (wear and tear due to chemical processes that release energy).

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