Pre-Race Prep: How Ashiatsu Helps Colorado Springs Runners Perform Better

Summer is race season in Colorado Springs, and it is a demanding one. Between the Garden of the Gods 10 Mile Run in June, the Barr Trail Mountain Race in July, the Pikes Peak Ultra, and the legendary Pikes Peak Ascent and Marathon in September, our runners take on some of the toughest courses in the country. Add in thin mountain air, relentless climbs, and long descents that pound your legs, and it is no surprise that recovery becomes just as important as the training itself.

That is where massage comes in. Done well and timed right, massage helps you show up to the start line looser, fresher, and better prepared, then bounce back faster afterward. In this guide, we will walk through exactly what massage does for runners, why ashiatsu is especially well suited to the demands of Colorado Springs running, and how to time your sessions around race day. At Inspire Movements in Briargate, we work with runners all season long, and we have seen firsthand how the right bodywork can be a genuine performance edge.

Why Running in Colorado Springs Is Uniquely Demanding

Colorado Springs sits at roughly 6,035 feet of elevation, and many of our iconic races climb far higher. The Pikes Peak Ascent tops out above 14,000 feet, and the Barr Trail Mountain Race and Pikes Peak Ultra put runners on steep, technical terrain for hours at a time. This combination of altitude and vertical creates physical demands that flatland running simply does not.

Two factors matter most for your muscles. First, climbing at altitude means your muscles work harder with less available oxygen, which accelerates fatigue and metabolic buildup. Second, and often underestimated, is the toll of descending. Running downhill loads your quads, calves, and hips with eccentric contractions, the kind where the muscle lengthens under tension. Eccentric loading is the single biggest driver of the muscle damage and soreness runners feel in the days after a hard effort.

The result is that a Colorado Springs runner’s legs, hips, and lower back take a beating that builds up over a training block. Tight calves, locked-up hips, cranky IT bands, and a stiff lower back are not just annoyances. Left unaddressed, they change your gait, reduce your efficiency, and raise your injury risk. Massage is one of the most effective ways to interrupt that buildup before it costs you.

What Massage Actually Does for Runners

Massage is not just a feel-good luxury for runners. It works through several well-understood physiological mechanisms. It increases circulation to muscles, which helps deliver oxygen and nutrients and clear metabolic waste. It reduces muscle tension and stiffness, restoring range of motion that hard training quietly erodes. And it shifts your nervous system toward its parasympathetic, rest-and-recover state, which supports better sleep and deeper recovery between sessions.

The research on massage and post-exercise recovery is encouraging. A systematic review and meta-analysis indexed on PubMed pooled eleven randomized controlled trials and found that massage after strenuous exercise significantly reduced delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) at 24, 48, and 72 hours compared with no intervention. The same analysis found that massage improved measures of muscle performance and reduced blood levels of creatine kinase, a marker of muscle damage. In plain terms: less soreness, better performance, and less muscle breakdown.

Understanding DOMS helps you time massage well. DOMS typically develops 12 to 24 hours after a hard effort, peaks somewhere between 24 and 72 hours, and resolves within about a week. That timeline is why the days immediately after a race are when recovery work pays off most, and why the days right before a race call for a gentler touch.

What the Research Shows	Finding for Runners
Muscle soreness (DOMS)	Significantly reduced at 24, 48, and 72 hours after strenuous exercise with massage
Muscle performance	Improved measures of muscle force and torque
Creatine kinase (muscle damage marker)	Lower blood levels after massage, suggesting less muscle breakdown
Nervous system	Shift toward the parasympathetic state that supports recovery and sleep

Why Ashiatsu Is Especially Effective for Runners

All massage helps, but ashiatsu has qualities that make it particularly well suited to the thick, dense, chronically tight muscles that endurance running builds. Ashiatsu uses the therapist’s feet, supported by overhead bars, to apply broad, deep, sustained pressure. That broad contact surface lets the therapist reach real depth without the sharp, digging sensation that can come from an elbow or thumb.

For a runner, that means the big muscle groups that take the most punishment, the quads, hamstrings, calves, glutes, and the IT band’s surrounding tissue, can be worked deeply and comfortably. The sustained pressure encourages chronically shortened muscles to actually let go, rather than bracing against the pressure. And because ashiatsu covers large areas efficiently, a session can address the whole posterior chain and hips in the kind of integrated way that running demands.

What Makes Ashiatsu Ideal for Runners

• Broad, deep pressure reaches the dense leg and hip muscles running builds, without the sharp discomfort of smaller tools
• Sustained holds coax chronically tight calves, hamstrings, and hip flexors to release fully
• Efficient full-chain coverage treats the quads, hamstrings, glutes, and calves as the connected system they are
• Deeply relaxing while still therapeutic, which supports the nervous-system recovery endurance athletes need
• Adjustable pressure so it works whether you want deep pre-block maintenance or a lighter pre-race flush

The Pre-Race Massage Timeline

Timing is everything when it comes to massage and racing. A deep session at the wrong time can leave you sore on race day, while a well-timed session sets you up to perform. Here is the framework we use with our racing clients, whether you are targeting the Garden of the Gods 10 Mile or the full Pikes Peak Marathon.

When Before the Race	Type of Session	Why
7 to 5 days out	Deeper therapeutic work	Enough time to fully recover from any post-massage tenderness. Address chronic tightness and imbalances now.
4 to 3 days out	Moderate pressure	Release lingering tension while leaving a comfortable buffer before race day.
48 to 24 hours out	Light flush only	Gentle, circulation-focused work. Avoid deep pressure that could leave you sore.
Race morning	No deep massage	Only very light activation or self-massage. Save the real work for after.

5 to 7 Days Out: Do the Deep Work

This is the window for your most therapeutic session. Because DOMS from deep work resolves within a few days, a session a full week out gives your body time to recover and adapt. This is when to address the chronic tightness that has built up over your training block: locked-up hips, a tight IT band region, stubborn calves, or a cranky lower back. Getting this work in early means you arrive at race week already loose.

3 to 4 Days Out: Moderate Maintenance

A moderate-pressure session in this window keeps things loose without risking race-day soreness. The goal shifts from fixing to maintaining. Your therapist works out any lingering tension while keeping the pressure comfortable enough that you feel fresh, not tender, the next day.

24 to 48 Hours Out: Light Flush Only

In the final day or two, less is more. A light, circulation-focused flush can help you feel loose and ready, but deep pressure this close to race day is a mistake. Deep work can create micro-soreness exactly when you want your legs to feel their best. Keep it gentle.

Race Morning: Leave the Legs Alone

Race morning is not the time for a massage. At most, do some light self-massage or dynamic warm-up movements. Your legs are as ready as they are going to be, and the priority is your warm-up and nutrition, not new sensory input to the muscles.

Post-Race Recovery: Where Massage Really Shines

If pre-race massage is about arriving fresh, post-race massage is about bouncing back. After a hard race, your muscles are dealing with micro-damage, inflammation, and the metabolic aftermath of a big effort. This is exactly where the research support for massage is strongest, since it measurably reduces DOMS in the 24-to-72-hour window when soreness peaks.

The key is not to go too deep too soon. Immediately after a race, your tissues are inflamed and sensitive. A gentle flush in the first day or two supports circulation and comfort. Save the deeper work for a few days out, once the acute soreness has settled, to fully release the tension the race created and get you back to training.

After the Race	What to Do
Same day to 24 hours	Rest, hydrate, gentle movement. Optional very light flush massage.
2 to 3 days	DOMS peaks. A gentle to moderate recovery massage helps most here.
4 to 7 days	Deeper work is fine now. Release lingering tension and reset for training.
Ongoing	Regular maintenance massage keeps you ahead of the next training block.

Common Running Injuries Massage Helps With

Beyond general recovery, massage is a valuable tool for the specific overuse patterns that plague runners. While massage is not a substitute for medical care when you have a true injury, it addresses the muscular tension and imbalances behind many common complaints.

• IT band tightness. The IT band itself does not stretch much, but the hip and glute muscles that influence it respond very well to deep work.
• Piriformis and sciatica-type pain. Tightness deep in the glutes can compress the sciatic nerve. Our ashiatsu for sciatica relief reaches these deep muscles well.
• Calf and Achilles tightness. Chronic calf tension is nearly universal in runners and contributes to Achilles and foot problems.
• Hamstring tightness. Tight hamstrings pull on the pelvis and lower back and raise strain risk.
• Lower back tension. Long efforts and downhill pounding leave the lower back tight. See our low back pain therapy for more.
• Plantar-related foot tightness. Releasing the calves and foot tissue can ease the pull that contributes to plantar discomfort.

Getting the Most From Your Sessions

A few simple habits maximize what you get out of massage as a runner. Hydrate well before and after, since both circulation and recovery work better when you are well hydrated. Communicate clearly with your therapist about your race schedule and any problem areas, so the session can be tailored to where you are in your training. And stay consistent. Like training itself, the benefits of massage compound with regularity rather than one-off sessions.

Many of our runners also pair their massage with red light therapy to further support tissue recovery and reduce inflammation. The combination is popular with athletes for exactly this reason, and we cover how the two work together in our guide on what to expect from red light therapy after a massage.

When to See a Doctor Instead

Massage is excellent for muscular tension and recovery, but it is not the right tool for every ache. See a medical provider before your next massage if you experience any of the following:

• Sharp, localized bone pain, especially in the shin or foot, which can signal a stress fracture
• Pain inside a joint rather than in the surrounding muscle
• Swelling, heat, or redness that does not settle with normal recovery
• Numbness, tingling, or weakness in a limb
• Pain that worsens rather than improving over several days of rest

These can indicate injuries that need medical evaluation. Massage complements medical care beautifully, but it is not a replacement for it when these signs are present.

Race-Ready in Colorado Springs

Whether you are chasing a personal best on the Garden of the Gods 10 Mile, testing yourself on the Barr Trail, or taking on the Ascent, your body deserves the same care and preparation you put into your training. Well-timed massage helps you train harder, recover faster, and arrive at the start line feeling your best.

At Inspire Movements, we serve runners throughout Briargate, Research Parkway, and the greater Colorado Springs area. Jessica’s training in ashiatsu and integrative therapy means every session is built around your goals and where you are in your race calendar, not a generic rubdown.