Recovery

Looking WAY too comfortable
for the end of a marathon

I know I said I wasn't really racing Dublin, I was more doing it as yet another run, one with 20000 of my closest friends. I can prove that. Never mind the fact that I was able to sprint for the bus straight afterwards, that picture is the final and conclusive proof. To be honest, nobody should look so relaxed when they're crossing a finish line, no matter how long a race it had been.

Despite all that, recovery is a slow process. This one I think I can blame on age, even though I promised not to mention the "A" word again for a while.

I went straight out the day after the marathon, which is my usual recovery protocol after a marathon, and which has worked exceptionally well for most of the 105 previous times, so I'm not going to radically change it now. Initially the legs were slow and stiff , just as expected, but after a couple of days they started to improve. The trouble is that in the last two or three days they seem to have gone backwards again, which is starting to feel all too familiar recently.

No need to panic, I'll keep going as is, it worked after the crash that was Berlin and I'm sure it will work again. Once I have me legs back to some extend I think I'll try and do a few parkruns, mostly for fun (yes I know, I keep remembering how much I hate 5ks halfway through each one) but also because I think I have done excessive amounts of slow running in the last 12 months and nowhere near as much faster running as I should have, so I'll try and blow away some of the cobwebs.

On Friday I did something I don't think I have ever done before: I totally forgot to press the "start" button on the watch. And since I never look at the watch while running I only noticed at the end when staring at a set of zeros. Oops! Dementia setting in already?

I do have one area of concern, namely my right knee. It has been bothering me on and off for a few months already but has gotten worse the last few weeks. However, I'm pretty sure it's not a running-related injury, for the simple reason that it's not hurting at all when running. Instead it hurts when I twist the knee, usually when getting in or out of the car, or when I somehow make the wrong movement, and for a split second it can feel like I've been stabbed. What am I going to do about it? Not much, to be honest. I might try and avoid twisting the knee as I step out of the car but that's about it. I won't be stopping running, that much I can tell you for sure.

30 Oct

4+ miles, 39:13, 9:40 pace, HR 132

31 Oct

4+ miles, 37:18, 9:12 pace, HR 132

1 Nov

5+ miles, 44:51, 8:40 pace, HR 137

2 Nov

5+ miles, 45:00, no watch

3 Nov

5+ miles, 46:08, 8:55 pace, HR 140

4 Nov

6.7 miles, 57:31, 8:35 pace, HR 147

5 Nov

6.7 miles, 58:05, 8:40 pace, HR 143