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March 13, 2006
The Aftermath
Well, today wasn't too bad. I went to bed very early last night, like almost immediately after I wrote. Other than waking up a few times to pee, I slept very well. This is kind of strange for me, usually the night after a race is a pretty restless night of sleep. Of course, considering my condition yesterday, a good night of sleep was needed. I woke up pretty early this morning, without my alarm, and felt pretty fresh. This afternoon didn't even have that period where I feel like I'm going to fall asleep at my desk, but that is probably from sleeping all day yesterday.
My body has the usual sore areas after a long race. My calves are a little bit tight and my quads are a little beat up from all of the downhills. I think that I tweaked something in my left glute when I tried to stop myself from completely wiping out. Looking back, I'm pretty lucky if I only tweaked something. I spent lots of time sitting on my tennis ball at work trying to work out that spot, but it is probably too soon after the race to really get to it. My massage therapist always tells me that she won't work on me for five days after a long race because there is so much truama to the muscles.
It was practically a summer day today when I went to the track. The thermometer that I drive by on the way read 80 degrees at 5:00. I was pretty sweaty in shorts and short sleeves, definitely not seasonable for mid-March. There was a small crew tonight since a lot of people who raced yesterday didn't come. We did our usual warm-up and those of us who raced did 8 x 100 easy strides to get the blood flowing and get some of the gunk out of our legs. After a warm-down, it was a total of 7 miles for the night.
I ought to ice my butt, but that involves sitting on an ice pack and that just doesn't sound like a lot of fun. Running did help to loosen it up, so I'll stretch some more tonight. I have to keep reminding myself that the rest of this week is easy, there is a lot more damage that I can do by trying to actually train this week. I'm good about taking a rest day every week, but recovery from races isn't one of my strengths. It is always harder to take it extra easy when I don't feel like I lived up to my expectations in the race. I have to remember that if I don't take the proper recovery I won't be able to do what I want to in my next race.
Posted by Blondie at March 13, 2006 08:13 PM