Thursday, May 18, 2017

After The Marathon

Recovery from Saturday’s marathon has gone pretty well. Initially I thought I had aggravated my leg injury; Niamh noticed me limping on Sunday and a work colleague did the same on Monday, though I had been aware of it on neither occasion. However, it then improved remarkably quickly, by Tuesday it was much better already, as good as it had had been at any time the days before the marathon, and by Thursday morning everything is down to “barely noticeable”,  around 1/10 or 2/10. I’ll take that.

Muscle soreness was never a factor, from that point of view it seems to have gone particularly well. Taking it very easy this week sure helped, no doubles or anything longer than one commute at a time. On Wednesday morning I played around with the pace a little bit, going up to marathon effort once I hit the seafront (probably a bit too fast) and another pickup through one of the parks towards the end of the commute. On both occasions I felt really good, though the HR spiked much higher than I would have liked.

One thing I have noticed since moving to Dublin is that I find it very hard to relax while on the run. The leg definitely had a major impact on that, it’s hard to run relaxed when one leg keeps sending signals that something is wrong. Running in unfamiliar surroundings hasn’t helped, and running with a backpack definitely has not helped. However, on Wednesday, especially during the pickups, I finally managed to get into a groove and relax a lot more than at any other time since moving here. Maybe things are finally settling down.

I'm also trying to get as organised as possible, bringing several days' worth of clothing into the office at a time so I can run unencumbered on the other days.

Anyway, the legs felt a bit lethargic again on Thursday, with the triple-whammy of marathon, backpack and faster miles the day before clearly not helping. I’ll be taking it easy for a bit longer, I guess.
15 May
3 miles, 25:35, 8:31 pace, HR 139
16 May
5.5 miles, 45:54, 8:20 pace, HR 145
17 May
5.55 miles, 42:55, 7:43 pace, HR 149
18 May
5.5 miles, 44:56, 8:10 pace, HR 147

1 comment:

  1. Looks like you're recovering pretty well. I only tried backpack running commuting once - very annoying! Did the Monday/Friday clothing thing which helped some.

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