A blog about my life, fitness and fun! (...and maybe a few cat pictures...)

A blog about my life, fitness and fun! (...and maybe a few cat pictures...)

Thursday, September 21, 2017

Recovery from the Dam Half

The race results for the Dam Half are up and my time was 2:44. I was 107 out of 347 and 7th out of the 47 in my age group. Not bad for no training and just running for fun! Now the question is, next year, should I try to beat my time?????

Anyway... the crazy elevation in this race made me really sore! Here's a little bit about how I felt during the race, immediately after, and in the days after...

Luckily, during the race, I didn't have any aches or pains but my legs and feet got really fatigued. (Legs from the STRAIGHT UP sections and feet from gripping all the ankle turning rocks.)

Immediately after the race, while walking to the car, my calves threatened to seize up. When I took off my shoes, my feet were sort of crampy and weird. I never had my feet threaten to seize after a race. I blame the rocks! I got in the freezing cold lake for 10-15 minutes and stretched before my car ride home. I was hoping that would help my recovery.

When I stopped for groceries on the way home, I noticed the inside of my left foot REALLY hurt. I remember I SLAMMED it into a rock during the race. I hope I didn't break my foot! Luckily, as the day went on, the pain didn't get worse, in fact it started to fee a tiny bit better.

For the rest of the night, my legs were just absolutely exhausted. A spot in the middle of my back hurt from my hydration pack. It wasn't chaffing, it was as if my hydration pack resting on my back bruised my spine or something. HOLY CRAP I AM GETTING OLD!!!!

Let's fast forward to the next day (Monday)!

The inside of my foot continued to feel a little better. Definitely didn't break it. My ankles were sore but I have experienced worse. My quads and calves were a teeny bit sore. So was my right hip. (Remember how my hip was bothering me before Table Rock? Well it hasn't been bothering me at all for awhile!) I didn't run, but I did do a light upper body workout, lots of stretching and foam rolling. My body needed some TLC!

Moving on to Tuesday...

HOLY MOLY I HAD SORE ANKLES! Definitely wasn't running today. My quads and glutes were a lot more sore than the day before too. I guess it took two days for my full soreness to come on. My foot didn't hurt anymore. I did the same light upper body workout as the day before.

Moving on to Wednesday...

I decided to run this morning even though I still had some soreness in my ankles. I felt good running! I did 6 miles, and other than my legs being tired, it went well. I'm sure I'll still be a little sore for a couple days. But what did I expect? I did not train for this race and I will be honest, the elevation was a lot harder than I thought it would be!
Trail runners: Do your ankles ever get sore?
Anyone have their feet spaz out after a run?

13 comments:

  1. Obviously I'm not a trail runner but every time I have gone to PT they have told me that my ankles are a little bit weak. This always surprises me because as a runner I would think we all have strong ankles. I mean think about the daily impact we put them through! How could they not be the strongest part of our bodies?! My ankles don't *feel* weak to me but both PT people I've been to this year have told me that they could use a little strengthening!

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    1. Man PT pretty much tells me every area of my body needs improvement. I think that's their job! Because our bodies aren't perfect at all right? Sometimes I leave PT feeling so downtrodden, like all the work I do isn't enough. As far as the ankles, since I haven't run trail in awhile and this terrain was really rocky, my ankles just had to use muscles they never ever use out on the road. So now it's like, Oh, hello muscles! Thinking back to Table Rock, I don't remember my ankles being sore but even though that was a longer race with more hills, the terrain wasn't rocky so I guess my ankles didn't have to do a ton of stabilizing work.

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  2. This is making me feel sore just reading this!

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  3. Hmmm... I don't remember ever having sore ankles before. My quads were the most sore from my trail race. When I ran my 50K, I fell several times so my whole body ached (my neck especially!) from falling.

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    1. Ow. Falling can do that to you. I bet your ankles weren't sore because you trained for your 50k and I hadn't run any technical trail in weeks.

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  4. YES! My feet and calves have definitely cramped the second I cross the finish line and in bed later that evening. It's a crazy feeling! It's good that you took a couple days off but also good that you went for a shakeout run on Wednesday just to keep your legs mobile.

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    1. I was definitely excited to go for a run but I felt like my legs never stopped being mobile because as a teacher, I am up and down and walking around all day. It's good though because if it were summer I may have just laid on the couch the day after.

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  5. I was used up! Two days off felt good, I needed it. My run this morning felt even better than yesterday!

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  6. My toes can cramp after a good run, which doesn't help when I'm trying to put on compression socks. I have to roll my feet and stretch them out.

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    1. Omg, when I used to wear compression socks, my whole body would spaz out when trying to put them on. I swear, putting compression socks on is harder than the actual run itself!

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  7. Trail runs always make me sore and have a longer recovery time than the roads. After a road race I can generally get back out there and do whatever I was doing pretty quickly, but not so much when it's a trail run. I didn't recover properly after my last half marathon on a trail, and I paid for it with an injury about a week later. Trail running works different muscles than road running and plus all those inclines, declines, and the terrain are so different (not to mention almost three hours on your feet is hard no matter what).

    You are right on PTs. They can always find something wrong, but my friend is a runner and PT and kind of acknowledges it, it's just like any sport, people have things they can work on to improve and I guess PT is the same way.

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    1. I guess it is their job to figure out what's wrong with us, right? And even if we improve something, then something else suffers. I feel like it is impossible to just have everything perfect with your body.

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