Sunday, June 11, 2006

Are we recovered yet?

Man, that was one difficult recovery run. Is that an oxymoron?

Yesterday Leah and I were scheduled for a 5 mile recovery run. The goal, of course, was to either run it slow or slower, with an option of slowest, depending on how we felt.

We were meeting people in Oak Park (suburb right outside Chicago) to see The Omen (we were the only people who liked it and Leah loved it. Hey, it had a decapitation, what's not to love?) so we had to run at the lab before heading out there. Luckily, Leah has her fancy-schmancy Garmin, so the five miles were easy. Easy to measure, I mean. Easy to run? Uh...

I don't know, it was fine I guess. It's just that both of our legs (both meaning Leah's and mine, not both as in right and left) were fairly tired and I know I was sore in many spots (calves, knee, arches) which is something that was not happening before this week. Leah said she had some arch/calf tightness as well. I think it might be a product of running Thursday too hard and not icing. After today's 13 miles, I am taking that damn ice bath whether I want to or not (I'm thinking "not" will be my mood). Regarding the actual running of the recovery run, we went nice and slow, pacing around 10 minute miles. We did stop to stretch once and I walked the last quarter mile since my legs were starting to feel pretty bad and I wanted to "walk it out."

My right leg has been doing this thing this week where the foot goes numb and then with more running the numbness climbs up my leg. It feels like the foot is asleep. I can still run on it just fine, I don't limp or anything, but it is very uncomfortable. This is something I've always dealt with when running, usually when my training gets stepped up, so I don't think it has anything to do with my shoes. After my training stabalizes, it will usually go away. Does anyone have an idea what could cause this?

Today we have 13 miles after work. Hopefully the achey legs won't be a problem for today's long run; I really don't think they will be. With a long run, there is so much time to get loosened up and it is a slow run without being sooo slow that long runs tend to be fairly comfortable. Regardless, I'm going to try to approach this run with a positive outlook (I mean, what choice do I have?).

4 comments:

Thomas said...

I've had numb feet just like you describe them once or twice. Since then I've always made sure I don't tie my laces too tight, and it hasn't happened again. I'm not sure if tight laces were the cause of the problem or not though.

Full Metal Lunchbox said...

From this we can only speculate that tight laces can lead to decapitation.

Joe said...

> Does anyone have an idea what could cause this?

Well, you guys have been training pretty long and hard the last few weeks. Perhaps you need and extra, unscheduled rest day to settle down your various little aches and pains.

I had a week like that about two or three weeks ago. I was aching on my long run and I had to stop it a bit early. I took two extra rest days that week and I've felt like ever since. Rest is good.

Joe said...

"I've felt like ever since" was supposed to say "I've felt like a champ ever since"