Recovery Runs

Today was a nice easy day, which was a welcome break, since the last two days have been pretty tough. I did 10 miles this morning with some strides at the end, just to get the heart pumping a little bit. What I've found with strides is that it actually seems to stretch me out a little bit. I've always noticed that I'm really tight on the first couple of strides, but then I begin to feel more fluid as I go and usually finish feeling pretty good. I've always acredited this to the whole "recruiting of the fast twitch muscle fibers" as they say, thinking that as the fast twitch muscles were woken up, I started to feel better. Now, you must realize that this theory is based on zero scienctific evidence and entirely on me really butchering something I read somewhere. So now I'm starting to rethink my theory. What I'm thinking now is that strides just really stretch the leg muscles out and as they get more stretched out, the more comfortable I feel. This usually carries over to the next run that I do as well, so the whole stretching out theory does hold some value.

In the afternoon, I did another 7 mile run at an easy pace. Things felt surprisingly good during this run. I was expecting to feel run-down but I was actually feeling pretty bouncy (maybe stride related?). About 2 miles into this run, I was passing another guy on the lakefront path and he turned to me and said, "Do you mind if I join you?" That has never happened to me before. I'm really more of a loner when it comes to running. Of course, being the socially graceful person that I am (and not really being able to figure out a way to "Uh...No" and still come off as sounding polite), I responded with an enthusiatic "Sure!"

So we made small pointless chit chat for a while, and he wound up working about a block from my gym, so we ran together for the rest of the way. It actually turned out pretty nice because running with him forced me to slow things down a little bit, making it a true recovery run. Hopefully, that will help me out tomorrow as I make yet another attempt at some mile repeats. This is the 3rd time I've planned on doing them in the past 7 days, and each time I've found some excuse to replace the run with something else. The thing is, I kind of like doing them too. So tomorrow for sure. Mile repeats. No stopping me. Oh wait. Is that rain in the forecast for tomorrow morning? Uh oh.

My friend Nattu did complete Badwater this morning and came in just under the 48 hour time limit to get his belt buckle. He completed the 135 mile survival test in 46:22. Think about that for a second. 46 and a half hours. I can't even comprehend it. And look at that...he's still smiling!