It may seem obvious that running is good for mental health. A quick Google search on the topic returns hundreds of pages of personal anecdotes and compelling science. But the truth is far more nuanced than that. In fact, the interconnectedness between running and mental health is fairly complicated.

Mental health isn’t an on-off switch that you only need to worry about once it’s been flipped. Mental health, like physical health, is better conceptualized as existing on a spectrum with a dial moving you back and forth between the thriving and unwell ends of the continuum. Any number of factors inside and outside of your control can turn the dial in either direction, and where a runner finds themselves on the spectrum at any given moment can have big implications for their running.

‘Take Time for Yourself, Get Out There, Stay Consistent’

Grayson Murphy, two-time Mountain Worlds Champion, reminds us, “80 percent of your training and success is mental, especially if you are in ultras. If you aren’t going in with a good mental state then you aren’t going to perform well. The times I have been in my best mental state is when I have performed best. It is worth it.” When a runner’s mental health is thriving, their performance benefits, too.

At the same time, athletes who find themselves moving toward the unwell end of the mental health spectrum may see negative impacts to training, performance, and recovery. Many common mental health conditions include physical symptoms such as low energy, loss of motivation, and sleep disruptions. Any of these can directly impact training.

This can be especially true with depression, where doing anything, even things that are known to elicit joy, feels like a daunting task. A runner may know, intellectually, that a run helps them feel better, but getting out there and doing it feels impossible.

Darcy Piceu, an ultrarunner with ten Hardrock 100 finishes who is also a licensed professional counselor, encourages runners who face low motivation to not get overwhelmed by overambitious training targets. Instead, she recommends they shoot for something small and manageable. “Aim for twenty minutes,” she says. “You don’t have to do your planned workout. Even if you end up walking. Take time for yourself, get out there, stay consistent.”

Impacts of Running on Mental Health

Running is often considered an activity that moves individuals along the spectrum toward thriving, and that makes sense. There’s compelling science and an abundance of anecdotal accounts supporting the positive link between running and mental health. 

While the science about the mood boosting effects of endorphins or the stress-mitigating impacts of endocannabinoids and norepinephrine is convincing, most runners don’t need to read research to know that running can be a tool to support their mental health. Runners naturally turn to exercise as a place to process emotions, think through problems, temporarily avoid overthinking, or just feel better. Moderate exercise is linked to reduced stress, improved sleep, and decreases in symptoms of depression, and anxiety. 

According to the National Alliance of Mental Illness, one in five adults in the United States experience mental illness. Runners are not immune to this statistic. While running can help reduce symptoms and risk, runners are just as susceptible to the genetics, hormones, traumas, and losses that can both cause and exacerbate mental health conditions. Running supports mental health in the same way that eating well can support physical health, but consistent running can’t itself prevent mental illness any more than eating well can prevent a broken arm.  

In fact, it’s possible that running can move someone toward the unwell end of the spectrum. While running can alleviate symptoms of some common mental health conditions, it may exacerbate others. “If someone has a history of panic disorder or eating disorders or dependency, running can actually make things worse,” Piceu reminds us. 

Even runners without a history of mental illness can experience physiological and psychological impacts from running or their relationship with it. Running is stress on the body, and anything that is stress on the body is also stress on the brain. The longer and harder the runs, the more the stress. A bit of stress is a good thing—in fact, stress is necessary for athletic development—but if that stress isn’t met with adequate food and rest, runners can find themselves facing mental health challenges unique to athletes.

Conditions such as Overtraining Syndrome (OTS) and Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (RED-S) have mental health impacts as a result of an imbalance between training stress and rest or fueling. The same factors that put a runner at risk for a physical injury—overtraining, under-fueling, inadequate resting—also put them at risk for a mental health injury.

Running can even impact us well after a run is over. Though not clinically defined, there are abundant anecdotes of “post-race blues.” Piceu has experienced this marked change in mood following a big event, and has heard countless stories of others with similar experiences. “When you exhaust yourself at that level, it’s impossible not to impact you,” she says. “Physiologically. Hormonally. Psychologically. There’s a crash that comes after the high and it hits in multiple ways.”

In addition to the physical toll running takes on the body, a runner is also at risk for psychological stress related to the sport. Challenges such as feelings of inadequacy, environmental pressure, injury, fear of failure, poor body image, and identity have been linked to negative mental health in athletes. Any one of these topics can lead to unhelpful thoughts, feelings, and behaviors for runners at every level of the sport. 

Start with Self-Awareness

These complicated impacts and relationships can change over the course of a single training block or an entire running career. To make thoughtful and intentional decisions about training, a runner needs to develop self-awareness that allows them to honestly assess where they are on the mental health spectrum at any current point, and whether running is moving them in one direction or another.

To develop this self-awareness, Piceu encourages us to start from a place of curiosity. “Be genuinely curious about your relationship with running,” she advises. “Ask hard questions. Pay attention to what your body feels before, during, and after runs. Does it just feel good in the moment, or does it still feel good later? You have to be curious.” 

With a lens of curiosity, there is an absence of judgment. There is no right or wrong answer; instead, it is just neutral information to inform the next step. Piceu speaks from both professional and personal experience. “When I finally got really curious about my own relationship with running, I realized it didn’t have the power to do for me what I thought it could.” 

Murphy shared a similar experience. “I always heard that running was good for mental health. People say ‘I run for my mental health.’ It never occurred to me that the opposite could be true. But I learned it’s easy to go in the other direction and for it to become unhealthy,” she says. 

Now Murphy pays close attention to the way running makes her feel and uses that self-awareness to make training choices. If she starts to run out of obligation instead of desire, Murphy makes an intentional change. “If I feel a shift, I take a step back,” she says. “Maybe I cross-train. Maybe I take a rest day. I don’t want to run out of compulsion, I just want to run for the joy of running.”

There are lots of tools athletes can use to foster self-awareness, and most of them have the additional benefit of improving mental health. Piceu encourages all runners to engage in a stillness practice, like meditation or mindfulness. In addition to stillness, Murphy highlights the benefits of awareness and processing that come with simply putting thoughts into words. 

“I go to therapy. I write things down, make lists, write in my journal, stay present with myself—it all helps.” Murphy finds this practice so helpful that she developed her own training log and planner that is filled with tracking tools and journal prompts to help other runners cultivate their own self awareness.

The Role of a Coach in Mental Health

Murphy benefits from a history of coaches who prioritize mental health, including her current coach. She shares the insights she gains from her own self-awareness practices with him, which directly informs her training strategy. “My training log isn’t just about my stats. We talk about my mental health and how I’m feeling about life in general. He asks about it, especially around harder times, or if I have a race coming up, or if I haven’t mentioned it in a while.”

While it may not be intuitive for coaches and athletes to talk about mental health, it’s not possible to separate the athlete from their mental health. An athlete’s ability to engage with training, manage training stress, and recover are all linked to their mental health. 

Dr. Lara Pence, psychologist and founder of the Coaches Collective, a collaborative professional development group for coaches, reminds us that coaches should be familiar with mental health. “Humans have feelings, belief systems, and thought patterns that impact their capacity to follow through with training, adapt to training, and benefit from training,” she says. “So while a coach may feel like an athlete’s mental health is not their job, the minute they start asking their athlete to do anything they are signing up for supporting mental health along the way.”

A coach has a lot of power to create a culture within their team and build relationships with their athletes. He or she can destigmatize mental health and makes it a comfortable topic of conversation. Pence encourages coaches to set the stage early in the process. “Make sure that your [athlete] onboarding asks some basic questions like: ‘Have you ever struggled with depression, substance abuse, or eating disorders?’ Ask if they are seeing a therapist and let them know that if the therapist ever wants to touch base with them, that’s OK. Help create that wraparound approach.” Right away, the coach should demonstrate that mental health is a part of training, not separate from it. 

Pence reminds us that talking about feelings and caring about an athlete’s mental health is different from diagnosing and providing therapy. “Don’t be afraid of feelings. Not every depressed mood is depression. Not every anxious response is anxiety disorder. It’s OK to have conversations,” she says. Pence encourages coaches to have a strong referral list of trusted mental health professionals on hand, but also advises them to resist the urge to immediately refer out. “Sometimes, all an athlete needs is validation.” 

Expanding the Conversation

In 2019, the non-profit Bigger Than The Trail (BTTT) was founded to help provide access to mental health services and reduce the stigma around accessing services in the trail running community. Co-founder Tommy Byrne has observed stigma to be a primary barrier to runners accessing needed services. “In a culture where grit and grinding is glorified, it can feel like weakness to ask for help or admit you can’t do something on your own,” he says. 

This is exacerbated by the belief that running alone is sufficient to meet mental health needs and is always a positive for mental health. “When we overemphasize the benefits of running, we promote the idea that running is the same thing as seeing a therapist or taking medication,” Byrne argues. “The reality is that professional support is beneficial. You can’t just rely on movement and community alone. Those things are helpful, and they should be a part of the puzzle, but it is OK to need more.” 

Byrne recommends incorporating a variety of tools and strategies for your mental health, even when you’re feeling good. “Whether it’s mindfulness, therapy, medication, a network of people outside of running—find what works for you. Spending time on your mental health is never a waste of time. It’s the easiest way to improve your running.”

We all have the power to influence the trail running community to be one that supports and celebrates caring for mental health. Normalize having easier days and harder days. Normalize needing therapy or medication. Normalize facing challenges and having doubts. Normalize feeling signs of burnout or post-race blues. Normalize needing more than running to take care of your mental health. You’re not alone. 

• MSRP: $140
• Weight: 7.9 oz. (women’s size 8), 9.1 oz. (men’s size 9)
• Stack Height: Women: 40.5mm in the heel, 32.5mm in the forefoot; Men: 41.5mm in the heel, 33.5mm in the forefoot
• Heel-Toe Offset: 8mm

When Asics released the original Novablast shoe in the fall of 2019, it was a bit ahead of its time as a lightweight, responsive daily training shoe with a max-cushioned construction. The sharp and jagged shape of the sidewalls created a bold, avant-garde aesthetic that matched its outlier performance. But it was also just ahead of the COVID-19 pandemic, which, of course, turned the running world upside down by canceling races, changing runners training routines, and delaying new shoe purchases.

By the time the world returned to normal, things had sped up. The buzz in running shoes was all about models with rigid carbon-fiber propulsion plates embedded in thick, juicy, next-gen midsole foams. Although the Novablast continued to evolve with a second and third iteration, plated everyday training shoes were now all the rage, offering, like their racing counterparts, energetic pop, tuned to more moderate levels for long runs and speed workouts.

But now, as Asics prepares to unveil the Novablast 4 at the New York City Marathon expo, November 2-4 (and at running stores worldwide on December 1), the running world has, for a variety of reasons, come full circle and is ready to embrace a hyper-responsive, max-cushioned daily training shoe without a plate. Two of the biggest factors that make the new-and-improved Novablast 4 so timely and compelling are that the ride has been enhanced with an improved cushioning package and slightly updated geometry, and the growing concern that running in carbon-plated shoes too often could increase the likelihood of injuries more than originally thought. (Count me as one of the runners who has backed away from the allure of training in carbon-plated shoes.)

The bottom line is that it would behoove every runner to have an energetic everyday trainer without a plate in their quiver, and the Novablast 4 offers a great blend of cozy comfort, lively cushioning, and do-almost-everything versatility. Based on my initial wear-testing runs, it’s definitely a shoe I’ll want to be running in through the winter and into 2024.

Improved Upper and Cushioning

After the launch of the initial Novablast four years ago, Asics improved it through each of three  versions, making it cushier, lighter, and more stable. The fourth edition follows those trends even more dramatically. Specifically, the Novablast 4 has been enhanced with a full-length layer of the brand’s new lightweight FlyteFoam Blast Plus Eco cushioning material, asymmetrical engineering within the midsole/outsole chassis for smoother and more efficient heel-toe transitions, and a stretchy, engineered woven one-piece upper for a secure fit and accommodating comfort over the top of the foot.

The FF Blast Plus Eco material isn’t a super-critical midsole foam that’s found in so many high-end racing shoes, and it isn’t dramatically different from the previous version of the FlyteFoam Blast Plus material. The only differences seem to be that it’s made from 20 percent recycled bio materials and it feels a bit firmer—less squishy, less bouncy—than the standard version.

There is slightly more foam in each shoe—the Novablast 4 is a half-millimeter taller, and has a 5mm wider footprint at both the heel and forefoot to provide more inherent stability—which has added about a half-ounce to the shoe’s overall weight. The extra width is appreciated, and the additional weight isn’t noticeable and not a detractor to its performance.

Initial Impressions

I received a pair of advanced wear-testing Novablast 4 last week. Lacing up the Novablast 4 for the first time, I sensed it fits true-to-size with a medium-width volume and a rather snug toe box that provides a little bit of wiggle room for toes by way of the stretchy upper material. I appreciated the plushly cushioned interior with a premium sockliner, padded heel collar and a stretchy, thinly padded tongue that features a partial-to-deep gusset that creates two wraparound wings at the top of the saddle. Two nice subtle changes to this year’s model include a notched Achilles flare at the back of the interior and a pull tab off the back of the heel for easier entry. Combined with a sturdy interior heel counter, it served up a comfortable, locked-down fit. Truth be told, the fit and feel are fairly similar to last year’s edition of the shoe, but the slight tweaks have made some nice improvements in the ride.

I’ve now taken them out for five runs at various paces, ranging from 5K to 12 miles. On my first easy-paced neighborhood jaunt, I immediately felt the energetic vibe of the shoe. It wasn’t the sharp poppiness of a plated shoe, but more of a springy, rolling sensation that came from the soft-yet-resilient foam, the enhanced toe spring design of the forefoot, and how light the shoes felt on my feet. The Novablast 4 is not nearly as springy and lively as, say, the Saucony Endorphin Speed training shoe, but it is a lot more stable and versatile.

RELATED: The Best Road Running Shoes of Winter 2024

The next day, I took them out for a six-mile loop in which I incorporated a wide range of paces during an unstructured fartlek run. The propulsive sensation was even more pronounced at higher speeds, so it was easy to rev up to faster paces—almost effortless compared to many other everyday trainers—but it also seemed to make my jogging intervals faster than I intended. After two more moderately paced easy runs, I put them to the test on a ten-mile run. Although most of that run was slower than a nine-minute-mile pace with a relaxed, heel-striking gait, I felt so good I actually tacked on two additional miles for an even 12.

The asymmetrical design built into the midsole/outsole structure is aimed at helping a runner’s foot transition as quickly as possible from heel-striking to rolling along the lateral edge to pushing off at the big toe. As I rolled through the gait cycle at any pace, it felt like I would start to quickly fall forward from a point under the ball of my feet as the curvy rocker shape expedited the transition to the toe-off phase. (And yes, the faster I ran, the more dramatic it felt.) Was that from the energy return of the foam, the accentuated toe spring, the asymmetrical tooling or a combination of all three? I don’t really know, but I definitely felt the quick stride turnover served up by the Novablast 4.

I haven’t yet done a fast interval workout in this shoe, but I did add some post-run strides after several of my wear-testing efforts. I don’t know that I would choose this shoe for a high-intensity track workout—because I have lighter and faster shoes for that—but I didn’t have any trouble running on my midfoot/forefoot at fast paces for short distances.

The other noticeable improvement to the Novablast 4 is the lower-density outsole rubber that is slightly tackier than the higher-density (and presumably slightly more durable) outsole rubber on the previous editions of the Novablast. Whereas I experienced some slippery moments on wet pavement in the Novablast 3, I didn’t get that sense of insecurity at all in this version.

Conclusion

After debuting the max-cushioned Superblast shoe last fall, Asics has overhauled the fit, feel, ride, and look of most of its training shoes in 2023, including the Gel-Nimbus 25, Gel-Cumulus 25, and Gel-Kayano 30. They’ve all trended toward having more responsive midsoles, higher stack heights, more sophisticated uppers, and increased comfort. While I’m not a fan of the Superblast because it feels too bulky for running fast over long distances, I like the comfy feel and max-cush ride of the other models for easy to moderate paces. But, if I’m being honest, there have been several instances on longer, faster, and slower runs when I’ve felt like I’ve been wearing “too much shoe” in each of those shoes.

The Novablast 4 is the latest to get a makeover,  and while it might look similar to those models and have a high-stack midsole—it still has some semblance of the edgy sidewall aesthetic found in the original Novablast—it feels more agile and retains a much higher degree of versatility than the other shoes. Of all the revamped Asics training shoes, the Novablast 4 is the one that can best accommodate long runs, recovery runs, and up-tempo runs without any sacrifice. It’s light, lively, and nimble enough to run tempo runs and fartlek efforts, but it’s also light, cushy, and stable enough to endure longer and slower running, too. The stability-enhancing wider shape and slightly heavier package of the Novablast 4 has reduced its pace versatility by a smidge, but that wasn’t a concern for me. No, it doesn’t have the juice to run at fast interval paces, but neither did the Novablast 3, and there are many other shoes better suited for that.

Overall, I really enjoyed running in the Novablast 4, both because it’s light and lively and because  it can do most things well. My best judge of versatility in a shoe is whether or not I’d consider it as the only shoe I’d pack on a weeklong trip. I’ll take that a bit further: If I had just one shoe to run in for the next month, the Novablast 4 would be on my short list to make the cut.

You just spent months building the fitness necessary to complete 26.2 miles. It’s tempting to want to keep the momentum going post-race—until you head out for your first run and start asking yourself, to quote Des Linden nine days after setting the Master’s record in the Chicago Marathon, “Errrm, where did all that fitness go?”

After a big running event, you don’t want to just hop back on the hamster wheel. Respecting the post-marathon recovery period is crucial to making long-term gains, and most runners will benefit from at least one to two full weeks off from running. That may sound interminably long (it’s not, and even more of a break can be beneficial, too), but here’s why your body needs that time-out in order to come back stronger.

Don’t Rush the Comeback

Unfortunately, just like the only true cure for a hangover is time, you can’t fast-forward through the post-marathon recovery period.

“People think they’re just recovering from that one day, but that’s not it,” says Toni Kengor, co-founder and full-time running coach for Relentless Runners. “You’re recovering from the last four months or so that lead up to the marathon. I think people underestimate the physical and mental fatigue that occurs in that process, and that your body and brain need some time to just relax.”

Sore muscles are one of the major ways your body waves a white flag post-race, but being able to comfortably walk downstairs or sit on the toilet without holding onto the sink doesn’t give you the immediate go-ahead to get back to training. You may not be able to feel the recovery process after a certain point, says Laura Norris, a certified running coach, strength and conditioning specialist, and exercise scientist based in Colorado—but you better believe it’s still happening.

“Research shows that a marathon triggers a systemic inflammatory response,” explains Norris. “In the hours and days after completing a marathon, various inflammatory biomarkers such as creatine kinase (an indicator of muscle breakdown), c-reactive protein (an acute inflammatory response), troponin (which indicates acute damage to cardiac muscles such as heart), and lactate dehydrogenase (another indicator of tissue damage) are all elevated.”

RELATED: Your Step-by-Step Post-Marathon Recovery Plan

Translation: Your whole body—including your musculoskeletal system, nervous system, respiratory system, cardiovascular system, and endocrine system—are all impacted by the highly stressful bout of prolonged exercise, says Norris. “You can’t rely on a metric from a singular system (say, less soreness in your muscles) to ensure that all systems are fully recovered,” she adds. “More than likely, soreness will subside within a few days, but that does not mean that other systems are ready for exercise again.”

In fact, it can take up to four weeks for your body to fully recover physiologically from “massive aerobic exercise,” older research published in Free Radical Biology and Medicine determined. And that doesn’t even address the mental aspect of training and racing. “Your life has been dictated by this event for four months or so, and that’s on top of life stressors as well,” says Kengor. “That’s so mentally demanding, it’s important to give your brain time to relax post-race.”

Do You Lose Fitness by Taking Time Off?

Sorry to say it, but, yes, you’re probably going to lose a little fitness during the post-marathon recovery period. A loss of cardiovascular fitness and endurance starts to happen after as little as 12 days of no exercise, a 2020 literature review published in Frontiers in Physiology found.

But your body needs that break, because runners aren’t meant to maintain peak fitness all the time. “Most marathon training plans push you into functional overreaching before the taper,” explains Norris. “If you jump back into hard training too soon after the race, you could risk reaching the point of non-functional overreaching or overtraining.” And that can lead to fatigue, declining performance, and a host of adverse health outcomes.

Fitness progress isn’t a linear journey; you’ll have periods where you’re increasing volume and intensity, followed by periods of de-loading or down time, says Kengor. Those rest or recovery periods—which allow your body to make the necessary adaptations to the stress you just put it under—are what allow you to continue pushing your limits.

“It’s similar to how we slow down to speed up,” Kengor explains. “A lot of people don’t trust that until they try it for the first time, and then they see the positive effects and wonder why they weren’t always doing it.”

You worked so hard to get to peak fitness, and the fear of losing it is understandable. But you’ll return to those high levels of fitness more quickly post-race than it took for you to reach them pre-race, older research published in PNAS determined.

“Most runners return to their fitness baseline in a week after a marathon—even if they take that whole week off of running, research has shown,” Norris says. “Even if you were to barely run for a few weeks post-marathon, fitness loss would not be significant. It takes a full six weeks for significant changes in musculoskeletal adaptation. Taking one to two weeks off post-marathon will not induce significant losses of fitness.”

How Long Until You’re Fully Recovered?

Every runner responds to a big physical undertaking differently. Most runners should plan on a minimum of 7 to 10 days off of running post-race, says Kengor. Yes, you might feel antsy, but before you jump the gun, remember that this is generally how long the pros take—Linden just happens to have a trail adventure in Japan on deck. Case in point: Last year, Aliphine Tuliamuk posted about taking a two-week break after the New York City Marathon, and Lauren Thweatt posted about taking three full weeks off after the Chicago Marathon.

But a “break from running” doesn’t mean no exercise at all! “Exercise is a part of post-marathon recovery,” says Norris. “In fact, once you get past the initial rest phase immediately after a marathon, the blood flow from exercise will help you feel better sooner. It’s a fine balance of not rushing back, but also moving soon enough to help your body feel good.”

RELATED: A Deep Dive into the Science of Marathon Recovery

Low-intensity activities like short walks, yoga, Pilates, and even light swims or gentle cycling lasting less than 45 minutes can be great for your body during that first week or 10 days post-race.

From a running perspective, the key is easing back into things. After two weeks post-marathon, Norris recommends re-introducing easy 30- to 45-minute runs. At three or four weeks, you should only be at around 50 to 60 percent of your pre-race average training volume. “I personally don’t even introduce any workouts until after at least four weeks,” says Kengor. Upping your intensity too soon also increases your risk of injury, adds Norris, but “by then, the musculoskeletal system should be able to tolerate harder effort and increased mileage. This may seem conservative, but the athletes whom I’ve implemented this with have long-term development and a low rate of post-race injuries.”

And if you feel terrible—à la Des Linden—on your first run back, that’s not only due to significant loss of fitness. “Instead, the necessary time off may result in some dampened neuromuscular activity and slight reductions in blood volume, which may make a couple runs feel temporarily harder, but both will rebound within a few sessions,” says Norris. “You may also feel bad because you are still recovering on a cellular level, or because your mind is still rebounding from the mental strain of training and racing.”

The guidance above is generalized. If you go out for a run and it feels forced, it’s OK to stop and/or extend your break, says Kengor. “I think people need to learn to pay attention to how they’re feeling mentally on those initial runs back because I think that’s an indicator of where you are in the recovery process. When you’re mostly recovered, your legs may not feel the freshest they’ve ever been, but it shouldn’t feel like a slog.” To reach that point, you may need more time than the runners you follow on social media, and that’s OK! Running will be there when you’re ready.