Quick Thoughts on Recovery and Such

Today is my oldest baby’s birthday; she’s 20.

How did that happen? It is funny…I look at her and in so many ways she is still that same little girl.  We’re going to go out to dinner tonight to celebrate before dessert (I made her a carrot cake with cream cheese icing) and presents.

I’m still tired from PlayTri but not nearly as much as yesterday. At our swim workout Wednesday, the numbers barely squeezed through my brain. At the time, I thought, “There is no way I can do this workout.” But you know what? I could; I did; it was one of my better swim workouts.

Amazing.

Tired But Not Beat Up

It’s funny. As a road runner, you get used to a certain amount of beat-up feeling. There are aches and stiffness and bruised-feeling feet and so on. Then, I went to the trail and couldn’t believe how good my body would feel after, oh, a 4-5 hour run. I mean, a marathon on the road can practically make me a cripple (stairs, anyone? getting up off the toilet?) but the same amount of time on the trail feels like almost nothing afterwards. After a 50K, the worst may be beat-up feet and toes.

And then there’s this triathlon stuff. Sometimes, I just can’t reconcile the tiredness with how good I feel. I mean, it’s like if I’m going to be this tired, I should feel beat up and worn down. But my body is 100 percent. So I think I have a hard time justifying rest. It’s like I should be able to just pick up today and have full energy after doing 70.3 miles/7 hours of exercise this weekend.

That’s kinda crazy, isn’t it?

If you’d told me this six months ago, I’d never have believed you.