Recovery.

I have spent the past 12 days recovering from GCI, but more importantly recovering from an intense training cycle which started in December of 2012, contained 2 marathons which were on the speedy side, a 50K, and a bunch of high volume weeks (months.)

 

I do not like recovering. It is boring.

 

But dudes, it is indeed relative. While you might be picturing me lounging on a hammock, compression socks firmly in place, martini in hand while my body healed and rejuvenated HERE is what I have actually been doing.

 

-GCI was sandwiched in between my 2 busiest weeks of the summer. So on the Monday after GCI I went back to it. I was on my feet teaching (and by on my feet I mean vigorously walking, often jogging around if it was my turn to motivate a lazy pony...) for 9-10 hours a day. No resting. Zero rest. (and hey, this is a good thing! I can't be resting if I want to make cash money so busy is good.)

-I did B2B but that doesn't count for anything other than these remarkably absurd pictures. 

 

 

Muscles. Hello.

We are clearly excited. And absurd.

-I went back to the *quiet life* this week, only teaching for about 8 hours a day but I also put my horses back to work in earnest. No REST. (and again. no rest is GOOD! Gotta work!)

-I handled 600 bales of hay last night. 600 might not sound like a lot, but I'm the stacker- so trust me when I say that IT. IS. #poorlittleme #sobrave Hahaha yeah, THIS is why I'm so damn muscly!

 

So the message here is that while I have not been running and have been following my rest plan like the model athlete that I am it certainly has not been very relaxing. This is not a bad thing, as on the one quiet day of my weekend I got very bored (since I did not have a 4 hour workout) and decided that I would DIE if I couldn't start doing normal things again soon. (I might have been a bit dramatic) I was given permission to go out for a teeny tiny 30 minute run today which I am looking forward to tremendously.

 

The smart side of my brain knows and accepts that a recovery period is absolutely critical in order to be a life long runner. I continue to be so very pleased that I have remained uninjured this season and feel that following the plan given to me by Coach Kelsey contributes to that 100%.

We all know how I spent last late summer...... Sidelined for 3 weeks to let the shin heal. As soon as I got back to it I hurt my foot, since I had been running lop-sided for months with the shin shit, running normally again caused much drama. Immediately after that I was plagued with pesky Achilles pain for a few weeks, and a VERY painful hip flexor which kept me up many nights. SERIOUSLY.... So dumb!

Staying uninjured is probably part luck and part hard work. I have put in a HELL of a lot of hard work doing things I used to dislike like cross training. Which believe it or not *ahem* is very very important if you want to be a damn runner.

 

So anyway. Things will get exciting soon once boring mandatory rest is over!