When Race Day Doesn't Go as Planned: Handling Disappointment After a Marathon
Not every marathon ends with a personal best. Some end with a cramp at mile 20, a stomach that gave out halfway through, a heat-adjusted pace that felt like a betrayal, or a finish time that doesn't come close to what months of training said was possible.
This year I volunteered with the med-psych team at the Bank of America Chicago Marathon, providing psychological first aid to runners working through the emotional side of race day. It was a good reminder of something that's easy to forget when we talk about endurance sports: sometimes the hardest part of race day isn't physical.
The Disappointment Is Real
A marathon isn't one morning. It's four or five months of early alarms, long runs, skipped plans, careful eating, and a lot of quiet hope. All of that gets compressed into a few hours on a course you don't control.
When it doesn't go the way you pictured, the letdown can hit hard. And it often hits harder than people expect, for a few reasons:
The investment is huge. The more you put in, the more the result feels like a verdict on all of it.
Your body is depleted. After 26.2 miles, you're exhausted, dehydrated, and running on empty. A tired body makes every emotion louder.
Identity is involved. For a lot of runners, the goal time isn't just a number. It's tied to how they see themselves. The more narrowly your sense of self is wrapped up in one role, the harder it is when that role takes a hit. Having other things that make you who you are is protective.
It's public. Friends tracked you on the app. Family waited at the finish. Your result is right there for everyone to see.
None of that is overreacting. It's a normal response to caring a lot about something and not getting the outcome you worked for.
What Psychological First Aid Actually Looks Like
Psychological first aid isn't therapy, and it isn't a pep talk. It's a structured approach used in the immediate aftermath of a stressful event, and at a finish line it's pretty simple in practice:
Safety and comfort first, including a medical look. Warmth, a place to sit, and medical attention if needed. One important nuance: a runner who seems confused, disoriented, or dramatically upset right after finishing needs to be medically checked before anyone assumes it's just emotion. That kind of distress can be driven by low blood sodium (hyponatremia), low blood sugar, or overheating, and pushing fluids before a provider checks can make hyponatremia worse. Comfort and calm come first. Fluids and food follow the medical team's lead.
Space for the emotion. Letting someone be upset without rushing to fix it or talk them out of it. In practice that means a quieter spot, a calm voice, and actually listening.
Normalizing. Helping athletes see that what they're feeling is common and makes sense.
Perspective, gently and later. A bad day doesn't erase the training, the fitness, or the discipline it took to get to the start line.
Connection. Getting people back to their family, friends, or running group.
Notice what's not on that list: "Well, at least you finished," or "There's always next year." Those may be true, but in the moment they usually feel dismissive. Acknowledgment comes before perspective.
It's also worth knowing where psychological first aid ends. It's built for the hours right after a hard event. If someone is still struggling weeks later, that calls for something different, like a check-in with a mental health professional.
What to Do in the Days After a Tough Race
If your race didn't go the way you hoped, here are a few things that actually help:
Let yourself be disappointed, and be kind about it. You don't have to spin it into a lesson on day one. Feeling bad about a bad race is allowed. The research term for this is self-compassion: talking to yourself the way you'd talk to a teammate, remembering that every athlete has days like this, and noticing the hard feelings without getting swallowed by them. In athletes, self-compassion is linked to healthier emotional reactions and less harsh, spiraling thinking after a performance failure.
Hold off on the revenge race. Signing up for another marathon the same night can be a way of skipping the disappointment instead of working through it. Give it a week or two.
Separate the result from the process. Your finish time is one data point. The months of consistent training are a much bigger one.
Take care of the basics. Sleep, rest, time outside, and a few minutes of slow breathing or quiet each day all help your nervous system settle after a big stress.
Debrief once you've recovered. When you're ready, look at what happened honestly. Sort it into what was in your control (pacing, fueling, taper) and what wasn't (weather, illness, a bad day). That turns frustration into something you can use.
Expect a post-race dip. Even after a great race, a lot of runners feel flat or aimless in the weeks after. The structure and goal that organized your life are suddenly gone. Even at the Olympic level, the IOC now recommends planned "decompression" support after major events to help athletes process what happened and readjust. You probably don't need a formal program after a marathon, but the idea is the same: give yourself time to come down. It usually passes as you settle into recovery and find the next thing.
When It's More Than a Bad Race
Most post-race disappointment fades in days to a couple of weeks. It's worth paying closer attention if:
Low mood, irritability, or hopelessness hangs around for more than a couple of weeks
Sleep, appetite, or energy stay off well after physical recovery should be done
You're pulling away from people or things you usually enjoy, including your running group
Guilt about "letting people down" keeps circling and won't quiet down
Your sense of self-worth feels like it rises and falls entirely on your results
Rest feels impossible, or your relationship with training, food, or your body starts to feel compulsive or punishing
Those can be signs that something bigger is going on, like depression, anxiety, or burnout, and that's something a sports psychiatrist, sports psychologist, or other mental health professional can help with. Reaching out sooner rather than later is a strength, not an overreaction. If you're ever having thoughts of harming yourself, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.
The Bigger Lesson
High performance isn't about never feeling disappointed or frustrated. Every athlete who competes long enough will have days when expectations and reality don't line up. The marathoner who blows up at mile 20. The golfer who shoots 85 in the club championship after a summer of breaking 80. The student athlete who doesn't make the roster they worked all year for.
What separates athletes who keep growing from those who burn out usually isn't how often things go wrong. It's how well they can sit with the disappointment, learn from it, and keep going without letting one result define them.
That's a skill. It can be trained, just like endurance.
Congratulations to everyone who trained for this year's Chicago Marathon, whether or not race day went as planned. The work still counts.
Dr. Stephen Morris is a board-certified psychiatrist and founder of Good Wolf Wellness, a sports and performance psychiatry practice in Chicago & the North Shore. He works with athletes, golfers, and high-performing professionals in person and via telehealth across Illinois. To schedule a free 15-minute introductory call, visit goodwolfwellness.com.
Sources
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Ceccarelli LA, Giuliano RJ, Glazebrook CM and Strachan SM (2019) Self-Compassion and Psycho-Physiological Recovery From Recalled Sport Failure. Front. Psychol. 10:1564. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01564
Mountjoy M, Sloan S, Ali-Zada M, et al International Olympic Committee consensus-driven guidelines for athlete mental health support at sporting eventsBritish Journal of Sports Medicine 2025;59:1459-1470.
