Because a life well lived always finds the right pace
As previously reported, last Sunday, I ran the Wilson Bridge Half Marathon, which turned out to be much more than I had bargained for. What was supposed to be a tuneup race turned out to be one of the most punishing runs I’ve ever had, thanks to a course that had us running over rolling hills, mostly on rock-hard concrete. In the aftermath of the race I had to confront something I hadn’t felt since my very first full marathon (Philadelphia, 2006): delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS).
So what, you might ask? We all get sore from time to time, after a hard workout or even a short, hard race. What’s the big deal? DOMS is a whole different beast than just the typical post-workout fatigue. It’s basically a thousand micro-tears in a muscle or muscle group, that collectively renders its recipient powerless to do much of anything for a few days afterwards. That’s basically what happened to me after Wilson Bridge.
The effect on my training this week, needless to say, has been profound. Whereas I figured I would bounce back quickly from a half-marathon and get right back on track within a day or two, I’m now rehabbing from what essentially, despite its fancy name, is really just another overuse injury. That means I go through the normal cycle: RICE, then gradually resuming activity and then ramping up when the symptoms clear up.
Suffice to say it’s been a very light week of “training.”
Done so far:
And for this weekend:
I’ll see how this recovery week goes; hopefully by Monday I’ll be able to start putting some more miles on and get back to normal training by mid-week. Then the next challenge will be rescheduling some of those missed workouts that had been planned for this week, most notably the 22-miler originally scheduled for tomorrow. With 46 days to go, I have time – I think.
Striding Through 