The Aftermath

Holy Hell were my quads a wreck! It's amusing to me that after the Buckeye 50k I came home and ran upstairs to greet my hubby. There was no running up the stairs after Punxsy! (Apologies for the novel, when I write a race report it's like I am re-running the race again and it is so hard for me to condense it, especially when it's 31 miles! Plus I like to be able to go back and read these reports and relive my adventures so for me the details bring back all the fun trail memories)

I went out Sunday to try and get in a recovery jog. The day after Buckeye I went out and ran 6 fast pavement miles. This time, not so much. I attempted to jog but failed, tried to speed walk and failed, suffered through 2 miles of something that certainly couldn't be called walking and called it a day. It was pretty amusing hobbling down the sidewalk this middle school kid on a bike kept passing me and looking at me like I was the strangest thing she's ever seen! You feel like you need a sign saying I ran 31 miles harder than I have ever run in my life and that's why I am walking so strange, not because I'm crazy, oh wait...

Monday I didn't even try and just relaxed after work with a glass off red wine and watched a movie, "All about Eve." David and I have been renting old Oscar winners, this one was definitely good!

Last night I headed to the track hoping I could eek out some light jogging. I started with a 400 walk and calibrated my new Nike+. Then I "ran" 400 to recalibrate the running option. (It had been giving me credit for a mile when I still had 200 meters to go despite calibrating and on my 2 mile "walk" Sunday had given me credit for almost 2 and a half, I need to get the thing working properly before San Fran!) Most painful 400 ever. My quads were still a wreck. So I proceeded to walk two and a half miles and call it a night. My quads were feeling better while walking than they did Sunday and Monday but it's funny how after you beat them so an activity as every day as walking seems so foreign. I didn't feel like walking was painful but I couldn't make my legs walk normally. Instead it was like I had no knee joints and couldn't bend my knees. Then I would try to force myself to walk normally, but couldn't figure out what normal should be. I'm sure Solar and my hubby got a kick out of this.

So I was happy this morning to find I could make it down the stairs without too much trouble and that my walk into work I was able to actually walk at close to my normal pace almost pain free. Looks like my neurons are back on straight again! Tonight I'll try for a 4 mile trail run, we'll see how it goes!

It's all worth it. It is fun to push yourself and run harder than you've ever run before even if you do have to relearn how to walk the week following ;)