Saturday, May 23, 2009

Recovery training

I have been taking this week veeeerrrryyyy easy and trying to fully recover from the Rim to Rim. It was about 3 days before I could walk normally. And by normal I mean without looking like I was 80 years old. And the parts of my body that I expected would hurt are not necessarily sore (my quads from the 7 mile downhill pounding), while others are still very sore (the ligaments in my ankles, my shins). I find that if I am on my feet all day, by the end of the day my feet and ankles are just aching and in need of ice. If I can sit and rest periodically I feel ok. I am trying to be smart this time around. I know that I put my body through a huge amount of stress and strain last weekend and I don't want to have a setback with my injuries. I have so much endurance and base training from the last 3 years of IM training that even if I have a couple of weeks of recovery with 15 weeks to go to Wisconsin, I'll be fine. I'm just taking it nice and slow and trying to listen to my body. So this week has gone a little like this:

Monday - rest
Tuesday- swam 1500 yds. Actually I alternated swimming with aquajogging. My legs were still really sore so I couldn't push off the wall but it felt great to get the legs moving a little.
Wednesday- swam 2500 yds. Felt much better today. I was actually able to follow my workout for my technique swim. Thankfully there was no kicking!
Thursday- biked 45 minutes. This was the first day I felt like it was safe for me to get out into traffic on my bike. I knew when I approached a stoplight I'd be able to unclip and get my foot on the ground without my ankle giving way. Nice light easy spin.
Friday- 7 am rehab appt. I knew I wasn't up for running yet, so I stopped for coffee on my way to the appt and did a 20 minute walk outside in the rain as my warmup before rehab.
Saturday- Ran the ARR summer series 5k #1 followed by a 3500 yd swim. The good news was, for this first race in the series they did an age-graded start so the older folks went first (there was one 80 year old woman!) and then each age/gender had a certain delay. My wave was set to start when the clock hit 12:13. By the time I started the course was so congested with people that I couldn't have raced it if I wanted to. It was easy to take it nice and slow and just enjoy the feeling of running again without pushing it. With a mass start my competitive side often gets the best of me and I take off like a bat out of hell, even if that was not part of my plan. I averaged 8:45 for the whole thing and I know I was running faster at the end. I kept it under control and tried not to freak out when people passed me. I ran the same course that I set my 5k PR on earlier this year... 6 minutes slower today!!! Afterwards I went to the pool for my anaerobic swim. My main set was 2 x 200, 3 x 100, 2 x 200, 3 x 100. After a nice long warmup I was able to hold 3:00 for all my 200s and 1:30 for the first set/ 1:27 for the second set of 100s. This was AWESOME for me! I am usually not this speedy.

Tonight we are heading down to Tucson so bike up Mt. Lemmon and do a little shopping at Trisports. I am hoping to get a new aero helmet, just in time for the half IM next weekend, and a few other necessities (we are completely out of spare tubes!!!). I am looking forward to the nice long climb, but I am terrified of the descent. I need to go to some camp where they can build my confidence on the downhills. I'm fine in rolling hills.... mountains are just a different story. Yikes! I am tempted to just go ride loops around Saguaro National Park while Dan is doing Mt Lemmon. Still get some hills in and some downhills, but on a closed loop course. Anyhoo... enjoying my 3 day weekend!

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