Aggressive Recovery

We met at 5:45 am today for the "morning after" recovery work. Nice, crisp and cool, with temps in the high 30's. Most of us had raced at Motive yesterday, so there were some fairly tired people in attendance. Gilbert told the "advanced" runners to do the Congress Ave. loop really easy and then meet him at Auditorium Shores for circuit training. I started off at the very back of the pack, running super easy, hanging out with Sean, Alex, Richard and Matt. We cruised along pretty easily, and I was happy to note that I didn't have any trouble getting loose after yesterday's hard racing effort. After a couple of miles, I eased up to run with Sean, and we chatted away for the rest of the run about various stuff. Matt caught up to us in the last mile, and we finished together. Probably picked it up in those last couple of miles, but it ended up being about 5 miles and about 9:20/mile pace. Good one.

Of course, then we had to do the circuit stuff. The drill today was to do the usual circuit exercises (step ups, pushups, situps, back raises, jumps and then lunges), with "diagonals" run between sets of exercises. Those are sort of 100m striders run, uh, diagonally, across the field there, with jogs along the straight ends, and then striding back on the other diagonal. I tried to use good striding form on these, just as further recovery tools. I scored 3 sets of circuits, and had done the diagonals for the fourth circuit, and stepups and pushups for that circuit, when Gilbert called us over for group pictures. While I waited for the pictures to be taken, I finished up the circuit exercises for circuit 4, a first for me.

Pictures were fun, and then it was time to get moving again. It was still just 41 degrees, and after stopping the exercises, we were getting chilled pretty quickly. There was more talk about how we did at Motive, and it seems that virtually everyone was very pleased with their races. It was just a relaxed and fun day at the running office. Despite my misgivings, Gilbert was correct about doing circuit the day after a race. Alex and I both agreed that we did feel much better after the workout than we did before.

I stuck around and did most of the stretching routine, but I was alone doing it. It was pretty chilly at that point when you're stationary. After that, I chatted with Gilbert for a few minutes, and he prescribed a new exercise to add to my gym work after seeing me late in the race yesterday. More glute stuff to balance things out. Okay, I can handle that. He's very happy about how we did as a group yesterday, especially all the big course PR's or overall PR's set.

By then, it was time to get in the truck and crank up the heated seats (I know, go ahead and sneer :-) ). Tomorrow is some easy running with some of the gang, and then a tempo run on Wednesday. I'll be on my own Thursday and Saturday, in Lufkin, which won't be terrible, I guess. I'll miss hanging out with my running friends, though.

My post-race massage today revealed little lasting soreness, but there were the usual spots in the calves and the left quad that had to be worked out. I guess all the hard work is showing up in the way I recover from hard efforts, too. That doesn't mean I need to do even more, just that what I'm doing seems to be the correct approach for me.