Slow Recovery

I owe the 24 hours race a lot. It elevated me from average part-time jogger at any other distance to a holder of 2 national medals and an international runner to boot. I have represented the country of my birth in a world championship, which still seems a ridiculous statement, even months after I qualified and was selected, and after the event itself. For some reason that I cannot explain myself I seem to be able to cope with the demands of a 24 hours race better than most. In short, I have much to be grateful for.

But there is one thing that I absolutely hate about the 24 hours race:

It's the recovery period afterwards.

Going on past experience it will take 3-4 months until I finally feel more or less recovered. Until then, things will gradually get better, but that's the thing. They can't help but getting better because I re-start at such a low level.

I started running again last week. I could barely run, it was such a pathetic shuffle; I was almost unable to lift the legs. I don't know what it looked like - I would not want to know!

One week later and my watch clearly tells me that things are a lot better already but I can barely feel it. The first mile of each run especially is still a pathetic hobble. I know I'm not exactly a spring chicken at the age of 45 but I feel twice my age for the first 5-10 minutes of each run. Once the muscles warm up things do improve but running an 8-minute mile is still a bit of a challenge. Having said that, I'm not actually trying to run a certain pace. I just run at whatever pace feels natural - the one thing I'm consciously trying to do is keep a reasonably quick cadence, and even that becomes automatic after a mile or two.

The pace was a bit quicker over the weekend, but at the expense of a higher HR - not that I would have noticed without the watch. When I'm in shape, I really have to push the effort to average 151 bpm. Right now that happens without any real effort.

My HR/pace ratio is improving, slowly, after literally being off the scale at first. Still, there is a lot of scope for further improvements.

I was just dead tired on Monday. Not only did I have to survive 2 birthday parties for the twins, the unexpected nice weather meant a few hours of work in the garden, which I am no longer used after teh winter, and of course today just about everything hurts, from my legs to my back to my shoulders. As  a result, I cut today's mileage back to 5 again - mostly to give me an extra 20 minutes of sleep - well worth it! Oh, and those 2 birthday parties over one weekend meant that my weight is basically back to pre-race levels!

24 Apr

5 miles, 43:21, 8:38 pace, HR 147

25 Apr

5 miles, 40:38, 8:07 pace, HR 151

26 Apr

8 miles, 1:04:56, 8:07 pace, HR 151

27 Apr

5 miles, 42:08, 8:25 pace, HR 142