Recovery Complete

This really isn't a good time to be come down with a case of sore muscles. With less than 4 weeks of real training time before the taper for the Chicago Marathon, time is getting scarce. I guess it's just natural, no matter how long you've been working towards a big race to feel like you need just a little more time to get everything together.

In reality, all of the training I have done this year, starting way back in January, has been done with an eye towards October 22nd. To think that a few more weeks would really do me any good is probably crazy-talk. While I feel like I have made great strides this year, which will hopefully result in a fast marathon, I think there are still a lot of things I can improve on. However, now probably isn't the time to dwell on that. I will do a thorough post-mortem sometime in late October. Right now is the time to focus on what I can do in the next 3+ weeks to make sure I peak for my goal race.

As I mentioned in my post on Monday, I was extremely sore all day Sunday and Monday. While I did manage to get out for 8 miles on Monday, it hurt and other than getting some blood flow to the legs, I'm not sure the run did a lot of good. Tuesday I had a 17 miler scheduled, but going to bed on Monday night, I wasn't sure if that was going to happen. My legs were still heavy late into Monday evening. However, when I woke in the middle of the night on Monday, for one of my standard midnight drinks of waters, my legs felt much better. At that point, I pretty much decided that I was going to give the 17 miles a go.

Well, I wish I could say that Tuesday's 17 was easy and effortless. It certainly wasn't that, but it also wasn't the worst 17 miler I've done this year. I was able to average under 7 min/miles for the run, and felt stronger during the second half of the run than I did for the first half of the run. More importantly, in the hours that followed the run, I seemed to continue to recover from the weekend's pounding. I was afraid that with a longer run like this, I would take a step back and go right back to having dead legs. That didn't happen.

Today called for another 10 miles. I wanted to do it early in the morning, but when I woke up at 5AM, I was greeted with a steady downpour and thunder. I decided to roll over and go back to sleep, thus pushing the run out to lunchtime. At lunch I did manage to get out for the run. I started the run heading directly into the wind and it made and sort of fast running nearly impossible. However, once I turned around and had the wind at my back, I was able to work the pace down to a 6:45 overall average. Not exactly setting the world on fire, but a little better.

So I think that I am now almost fully recovered from the race on Saturday. All things considered, I am pleased with how I was able to jump right back into training. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. It's been a long time coming.