Quick recovery – So far, so good!
In addition to just surviving the L.A. Marathon and having a good time out there while running 31+ miles, I was also really focused on having a quick recovery. My plan, long before signing up for the marathon, was to participate in Ironman 70.3 California this coming Saturday. Don’t get me wrong, for a while now, I haven’t had any intentions of actually racing the half-ironman, but I do want to get out there and have something of a fun, agony-free day.
And the good news is that four days out from the marathon, I’m feeling surprisingly well recovered. I took Monday completely off (except for some stretching), went for an easy run on Tuesday evening, spent a little time on the trainer yesterday and joined the Coyotes for a great run this morning on the Temescal Canyon trails. The workouts on Tuesday and Wednesday were fine, but this morning’s run felt great. I didn’t have any lingering soreness, tightness or heavy legs or feet from the marathon. I ran a little further than planned and pushed the pace a bit and almost kept up with a couple of the big boys. Awesome.
I’m not sure why exactly I recovered well, but it was based on a combination of the following:
- Immediately after the race I couldn’t eat much, but once I started eating a couple hours later, I didn’t stop shoving food and fluids in my face until close to midnight.
- Jumping into the cold pool at the Griffin’s after the race. Almost as good as an ice bath.
- I didn’t mention it in my report, but on Saturday night I decided that I would put kinesio tape on both achilles and my right IT band for the race. I still have no idea how (or really if) the stuff works, but it definitely doesn’t hurt!
- Liberal use of self massage with the “Stick”, my Trigger Point Therapy products and an awesome massage from Scott yesterday afternoon.
- Wearing compression/recovery clothes – I put on my brand-new Zoot CompressRx Recovery Tights from the time I got out of the shower Sunday afternoon until I woke up Monday morning. I also wore my CEP Compression socks to work on Monday. CEP socks are my favorite compression socks, and after just one use, I love those tights. After a few more uses I’ll get a full review up on the blog.
- Finally, credit to my training base, which must pretty good right now if I’m running 31+ miles on the roads and coming back this quickly.
Whatever it was, it worked. And I’m really glad that it did. Otherwise I might have had too good an excuse to skip this craziness on Saturday…
Run – Mar 23
Distance: 4.75 miles
Time: 38 min.
Course: Ballona Creek
Conditions: Evening, clear, high 50’s
Indoor ride – Mar 24
Time: 50 min.
Run – Mar 25
Distance: 7 miles
Time: 1:02
Course: Temescal Canyon
Conditions: Overcast, mid 50s
dude this is sounding awesome on the Recovery!!! nice job..
I too love my CEP Compression Socks. Guess I need to try out the compression tights.
rockon’
Nice man! Yeah, you looked fluid and fast this morning.
And I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I need to hunt down some tights now.