Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Keep moving


The thing about training for a long race is you may wake up on any given Sunday following say, a 10+ mile run on Saturday and not really be able to walk. On Monday your ability to move may be even more limited, so you decide to head to the pool for a couple hours of swimming. By Tuesday if your name begins with Jenn and ends with ifer then your leg muscles may still be screaming at you for torturing them the previous Saturday and to add insult to injury your arms from your ingenuous marathon of a swim on Monday now feel as though you bench pressed a small truck.

I was going to skip training tonight. Let’s be honest; did I really think I was going to be successful in running 3-5 miles when I couldn’t even walk across the hall without favoring my entire body? However, amidst the anguish I reluctantly slid into my car after work and headed north to the TU campus, where I chose to join my running group for some speed training. After all our running coaches tell us to “keep your muscles in motion to provide relief from DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness). So I did just that, kept my legs in motion.

Our training tonight may have been the hardest workout so far for me this training season. However I am happy to report I can at least move following our run. Once I got in this evening I did some research on other solution to help alleviate muscles soreness. I may be the only one that faces this type of predicament of sore muscles. Nonetheless, I still would love to share my findings with you:

Ice
Rest
Anti-inflammatory meds
Massage
Heat
Stretching
Walking
Swimming

My uneducated and unsolicited advice, for anyone that is interested in listening....if your body is sore following a vigorous workout and pleading......“no, please no, no more exercise” don’t cave. Follow your mind and your heart not your muscles, be rational though, you will know when your muscles are simply complaining or saying they hurt beyond a normal degree. Get out there and burn some calories, just don’t overdo it and get injured.

Enjoy your healthy life,
Jen

3 comments:

  1. Did you take that picture? I love the perspective!!! Oh, also great advice!

    ReplyDelete
  2. You know, not sure about your body type, but not all bodies are built for long distance running. In fact, most bodies are not, but more built for quick bursts of speed at short distances.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Crystal,
    I wish I could take credit for the picture associated with this post but I can’t. However, like you, I love the perspective and I may just go take a similar picture this weekend to replace the one I have on here :-) with my own. I suppose it all depends on how well it turns out :-)

    Mike,
    Are you referring to short sprints to the kitchen and back to the recliner :-)

    ReplyDelete