Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Recovery

I didn't feel too bad the day after the Texas Man tri. "Everything" was sore - back/shoulders/chest from swimming, glutes from biking, quadshamstrings/calves from running - but it wasn't a super painful soreness ... more like my body just saying "hey, you had a hard workout yesterday - just thought you should know."

I'm thinking the overall good news was due to (1) adequate training for the event, (2) some stretching and muscle massage that afternoon, and (3) good post-race recovery nutrition. Regarding the latter, I (of course) partook of the free pizza at the race site, but the race also had a lot of Accelerade (which has the recommended 4:1 ratio of carbs to protein) available at the finish line and I drank at least 32 ounces of it. After I got home, I had some pasta with chicken and a protein shake (chocolate whey powder mixed with caffeine-free Diet Coke - not bad tasting and quite refreshing).

On Monday, I did a "light" swim of 2,000 yards. Note: I have given up on doing the lap conversions into meters at LA Fitness - i.e., no more 11 laps for approximately 500 meters, it's now just 10 laps for exactly 500 yards - I like round numbers. (Sorry, metric system, you lose again :-P). My plan is to work my way up to 3,000 or 4,000 yards over the next couple months. As for Monday's swim, my 500 yard splits were decent: 10:55, 11:46, 11:40, 11:51. The total time was 47:31 with about a 1:19 water break in between the first and last 1,000 yards.

On Tuesday, I wasn't able to make it to the gym so I just did 60 minutes on the elliptical trainer at home. ("2.06 miles" at the highest incline and resistence levels). Almost like running and no pounding of the joints.

Today, I did a 60-minute spin class and then followed that up with a treadmill run where about half the time it was at the 5 degree incline setting (the rest of the time it was flat - zero degrees incline). The results:
  • Time: 44:44
  • Distance: 4.5 miles
  • Vertical climb: 604 feet
Tomorrow, I plan to do another (shorter, 45-minute) spin class and then do a weight training session. Friday will be an off day to rest up for Saturday's Tour Des Fleurs 20K run.

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