Recovery

I see people running and I am jealous.

I see them all along the river path when I drive to and from work and all over the Sandy Beach/River Park area when I am out walking (yes walking, not running), and on treadmills at the gym. However, I am in recovery and I need to stay in recovery if I want to see any more marathons in my future! After all, if the body is to recover from 3+ hours on the pavement, it needs tons of TLC in the form of rest and good food. And truth be told, I am already plotting my next marathon. I know, I said I was going to transition to triathlon (and I will at some point) and that I was going to give my bod a break from all of this pounding, but there is always room for improvement where the time is considered! And now that I demolished the 3:17 with a 3:14, I am pondering how I can conceivably get myself under 3:10...and then maybe even 3:00. Oh the marathon dreams!

The recovery is going quite well, truth be told...I don't recall recovering this quickly in recent memory. This time around I did try a couple of different things. One is that I went for a massage the day after the run. Ouch. It hurt. Big time. But I think it broke up the lactic acid nicely and put me well on my way to flushing it out of the system. Two, I went to hot yoga on the Tuesday after the run. And the Thursday. And the Sunday. And even though I couldn't do all of the poses, it was amazing for my body to be in the hot room stretching and sweating out the toxins. So low and behold I am one week and 2 days past the race and I feel...well, quite honestly, I feel amazing! Amazing enough that I think I might head out for a little jog today. Just a short one through the park for 20 minutes or so. I've got big decisions on my plate right now and I need some exertion in the form of running to help me work through them. Although I DID promise my body a solid 2 week break from running when I was in the throws of marathon pain around mile 24 or so...hmmm...

And on a very quick side note, I won some money in the marathon. $200 bucks as a matter of fact. How that happened I will never know. But I am now sporting a lovely new pair of Oakley's. Thanks HSBC Calgary marathon!