In awe

Tag: recovery

  • Day412 random

    Don’t really have much to write but trying to throw something together here while on my way to work.

    I’m taking the train today and plan to run back home after work. Maybe a little crazy. The mileage from google map is 14-15 miles but some of those are on roads without sidewalks, so I will have to make some detours. The final mileage probably around 20 miles or more.

    How long will it take? 3-6 hours. No idea. I ran the route last year on a weekend and I got home around 11 pm, but that time I was taking a big detour to my mom’s place, adding in like 10 miles. I should get home probably by 10 tonight, hopefully. I will get home eventually.

    CRAW – virtual running around the world, our team is near finishing the region. My team and I are excited. We’ve been on this pampas region (S.Amer) for 10-11 weeks, since the beginning of the year. We need to get it done. We are around 100 miles away, which is about 3-4 days, give that we run 30 miles a day as a team. Personally though, I wish we could finish it today.

    I did some calculations, we will finish going around the whole world by summer 2022, maybe by late summer. I haven’t tell our team that to not dampen their spirit. We know we won’t finish it by end of this year, but no one knows we will be 6-8 months behind. We are currently about 2 months behind. The next region might be our last.

    As you can see, I am probably in a post marathon blue. Not because of the CRAW. This usually happens to me after a hard race. I guess I was spent.

    The weekend run was pretty hard. I have not experienced dying inside in a race. That was how it is. I hit a low point and never got back up. Hope tonight run would be a good shakeout.

    GLHF everyone! (good luck have fun- twitch gaming abbr)

  • Day407 recovery

    Almost two weeks now, recovery from the hundred mile run is still going slowly.

    Immediately after the race, I could hardly walk. I slept for an hour or so before going back to the hotel that day.

    I then slept for the next 8 hours or so. There was no running the following day.

    Besides, I had to catch the flight back home. No running for that whole week until I think Friday.

    The first run was hard. I literally couldn’t run. Muscle is bad but also my heart/breathing too. The whole body was very heavy.

    Saturday: I went back out. Pretty much the same story. Saturday and Sunday I had the whole day to be out. There was no rush. I walked mostly the first half (about 4 miles) Then the later half, my muscles and body had warm up a bit and it felt good to be able run “normally”.

    I have been going out everyday since. Monday was a holiday so I had a full day running. By Tuesday, my legs were sore again. I had pushed too hard over the weekend.

    Wednesday and Today, I dialed back the miles a bit. I am still out of breath easily. Usually I could only have 1 or 2 miles of good run. The rest was trashed. I walked and ran.

    Today was a snow day. We had 1-4 inches. Some in our neighborhood, we had barely any snow but just a block later we had snow that were knee deep.

    It was hard going. But it was good training. I like to work on my knees and my ankles. The snow kept me on my toes.

    Yes still recovery but I was able to get some good workout from the snow.

  • Day405

    I’m still savoring the run at the Rocky Raccoon. I was disoriented during the race and immediately afterward of putting together much coherent thoughts. Time flies.

    My sleep pattern is out of wack too. I did not get much sleep beforehand. There was no sleep during the race. And I slept a lot afterward when I finished (in the afternoon time). So after I got back to the east coast, for the past few days, I have been going to bed around 8 ish, and woke up a little past midnight. Usually I only need 4-5 hours of sleep. Then stayed awake for the rest of the night. It is out of wack.

    How is my body recovering? It has been better than if from a marathon. I felt slight sore but nothing major. I haven’t run for the past few days not because I couldn’t but because just trying to catch back up with life.

    Also going to bed early was in conflict with my normal night time running.

    Healthwise, I have been taking it easy. I know my body immune system is weaken after a long run so I let it recover on its own. I did not feel in top shape. At night after dark for the past few days, I just couldn’t stand the cold. Going to bed early help.

    There is the concern of catching Covid. I plan to get tested either at the end of this week or early next week. When you are on higher alert every little thing changed to your body spooks you. I don’t feel strong. My muscle aches; I felt cold; my throat kind of hurt; I had slight dizziness. Did I imagine it? Were these the effects from the run or am I getting sick?

    I have been staying low. No running for three days. Trying to find the new normal.

    One thing I found very perculiar during the run is my back hurt. Duh. No I mean my upper back – more like the shoulderblade areas, especially my right side. At first I thought because I run with the pack. Then I don’t have the pack on. I think my muscle there is weak. You can see some runners with their backs hunch over. I felt like that. It takes a lot of strength to keep the body upright. I definitely have to do something about that before the next race.

    What after this? I have to start training for the Laurel Highlands. I think it is harder than Rocky Raccoon because of the elevation. Rocky Raccoon has only 1000-2000 ft gain. Laurel Highlands, I am guessing 10000-20000 ft. Also the trail is not as forgiving as the Rocky Raccoon. I hiked on there and I know.

    oh, counting battle scars, I think from Rocky Raccoon, I had couple minor blisters, not worth mentioning. The strategy of switching shoes every 20 miles worked. My biggest “battle scar” I think is I might lose a toe nail. I kicked a rock or branch early in the race because a pair of shoes has very thin layer up front for toe protection. I think it is a gym/walking shoes. See, I am happy after this long race, I am still relatively well all around. I am more than pleased.

  • Day305 recharged

    I felt a bit better after a day of rest. I didn’t want to take a break but I couldn’t squeeze any more out of my body. It just stopped performing.

    Last weekend was the lowest miles I have done since April. Every weekend I want to go out to put up 50-60 miles. The past weekend I only had 14 miles.

    On Sunday I didn’t want to run at all. I did want to but my body was not moving. I tried and after a mile couldn’t pick up any pace I came back home.

    Last night, it felt great to be back out running. I was in my strides much of the run. I felt tired after 13 miles but still I could pull myself together for the last three miles and made it home, that when I know I still have it in me. 16 ish mile is kind of short for a test.

    I have been eating meat like a vampire sucking blood. I would like red meat. Not getting enough from food might be the cause of my low energy. I haven’t had much meat due to higher prices, but I brought a pound of ground pork after my trip and totally devoured it during lunch…yike it was supposed to last for a week! But my run was great last night, that made me feel less guilty.

    The trip to Atlanta is on. I committed. I know I committed after signing up the race, but I have been on the fence on choosing the date to go. Ideally I like to go toward the end of the summer, but I also don’t like the heat. Even now, it is crazy hot down there. I picked the July 4 weekend. The flight is booked and hotel too. My two weeks indecisiveness costed me two hundred dollars more for the trip, because my flight has become more expensive — no it is very expensive. I could fly across the nation at that price; hate it, but I don’t have much time to watch the price with only couple weeks left. It would be too risky. Also I looked at the stops of many cheaper fares requiring a stop to Fort Worth, TX before continue on to Atlanta – that’s crazy. I want to go to Atlanta directly. I guess we don’t have a lot of short hops low budget airlines in the US as in Chile. Enough ranting.

    My map is on its way. I will soon study the turn by turn for the race. 34 hours of worth of turns is a lot to commit to memory. The next step after that is choosing the start time. I probably will choose the traditional 5 AM start. I have until 3 pm the next day to finish.

    Also I decided not to upgrade my watch. I would like a watch that can last more than 35 hours on normal gps, but there are not a lot of choices out there. The price tag is just heavy for me at this point. Watch, flight, hotel, my trip is over a grand. So I stick with my current garmin, which could last for around 12 hours with everything but gps turn off. I just have to bring a charger along and charge it midrun.

    Also I hope my body won’t fail on me like last weekend.

    Two more weeks to get my body together.

  • Day299 Last day

    Yay! Tomorrow we will begin a new chapter and we kick this crazy corona2020 in the bucket. Kidding. I think we will live with the new normal for a long time.

    Not anything spectacular to write about today except it is the last day for filler. I do have something but they are controversial and I don’t think it is ready for prime time. I watched some Chinese propaganda videos on youtube, how they were exluded from the international space station and another video on why people are missing out on the windfall in investing in Chinese companies. I had some thoughts on those, but I think it is controversial, so I will keep my thoughts to myself at least for now.

    But I found a post that is in my queue, that was written in the beginning of May, when I took on the challenge to virtually run across Tennessee. I wanted to know basically on how my body is handling the high mileage. So here a month in, I am taking a look again.

    I dare not boast too much about it. My body is recovering well every day! It is handling well. I am sore and they are the good sore of general fatique. I am easily tired and feel sleepy…usually very early in the evening. I want to sleep a lot. I guess it is a good thing for the body to recover.

    No significant injury. I battled with shin splint early on but so far they got much better. I don’t think I have what they call hiker legs yet, but it should be getting there. The balls of my heels are hurting a bit. Yes, I am wearing old pair of shoes and they are due for replacement. My heels are taking the pounding, and that can become a new injury, if I am not careful.

    Health check. I should get a real physical when the doctor office is open. I think the doctor is in but everyone is leary of coronavirus – at least still present in my area. My state has been claiming this and that metric is showing we are beating the virus but they always put a star next to the data saying excluding the northern virginia which is where I live. They don’t have a specific regional data for my place because it is splitted into so many “political” juridictions – Maryland, DC, Virginia (Fairfax and Arlington are virtually on top of each other), which made statistics hard to come by. I have been using Maryland data as proxy because they are so much closer to us.

    I have been at it running relatively high mileage for over a month, nothing too bad. I do take days off, but also want to maximize the running time. It is a delicate balance.

    It is hard to tell if I have overdone it, so we will see. Will check back next month. I hope to stay healthy and motivated for at least a month more and evaluate again.

    In long distance like this, I read most people drop off after a few weeks in. If I can tough it out for another month and be careful about it, the summer will be great. My secret ambition is to cross the US continent one of this days, so this is really a baby step toward that goal. One step at a time.

  • day272 recovery run

    Run#3 distance 10 mi, GVRAT 58 mi.

    I got lazy of measuring the distances on Google Map. I don’t know how to do it from the phone. There is some problem with the live tracking website, so I am running blind now until they fix it.

    Today run was kind of hard as expected. I walked most of the way.

    On ranking, 13000 people started. My ranking goes from 150 to 75 ish bouncing up and down. I have some fierce competitors. Usually in a big race like this I do fairly well. I think I will be at the top 10% or higher.

    Narative (fiction). The first day was off to quiet start. There was no rush to get to the finish. Maybe a thousand some odd people lined up to start at 1 minute after midnight, the race official start time. It was a massive wave start. Basically people start as they arrived. I needed my beauty sleep, so I was not there when the first wave went off. Actually I didn’t sign up until the day of 12 hours after the race official start. At that point, many already had left. The check in was easy. I threw on my running clothes and shoes and off I went.

    I didn’t really plan to be on the road for the next four months. It was really a flash in pan operation. I had no food on me or drink for the matter. I figured I would go until I drop. Winging it. So I started running. Along the way, I saw people just stopped and hang around. This was one of most casual race I am taken part in. I guess they were done for the day. As I ran I saw more and more people. I caught up with the crowd around mile 5 ish and I plodded on for a few more miles. Most have started to camp here or there for the day. I decided to go on further. There were about nearly 6 or 7 thousand of us, so finding a place to camp could be a challenge. Luckily there were enough land on either side of the road. The neighbors were friendly and welcomed us to camp on their front yard as long as we clean up after ourselves. Not a problem. I have gone camping enough times to know the Leave no Trace principle. (Edit to add: Ah, most took a ride back to Memphis for the night, and I didn’t know and roughed it out)

    This is pretty big deal to have a first ever a race across the state. We have people from around the country and the world joining in on this event. Hey, with the summer Olympic canceled, this is the next best thing. Best of all this race is open to both the elites and the every day joe like me.

    Everyone just chose an area and chilled. I don’t remember seeing any trees around. So people just scattered about. The mighty Mississippi is nearby. I imagine some went fishing. Some were barbequeing. Man, I left my camp stove at home.

    I explored a bit and went to the post office about half a mile away and dropped off a postcard home.

    The first day though, I survived on bananas from the race aid station and candies from the crowd. We were still in a remote part and there is no store around. I didn’t know at that time that the city is about 20 miles away. If I ran for another 5-10 miles or so, I would have reached ‘civilization’.

    Oh well. The next day was a slow start. I was not a morning person. Might be because I went to bed too late the night before. I wanted to plot out a course to take.

    I had a long day and was out until sunset, for a total 11 hours. I really put in the distance. With still 600-ish mile to go, I had to pace myself better. I immediately felt asleep.

    The third day now. I started to feel hey this won’t be over soon. I did not want to go today but realized I can’t stay here. The race just started. I remember back when I was in Patagonia, each morning, we got up, we packed, and on our way. So this is the same. Just keep on treading and repeat. I put in just a nice 10 miles. I started to see some regular faces around me. Hopefully, we will all arrive at the finish line together.

    The next portion of the run will take me away from the city. I don’t know if the battery on my phone will last. So there might not an update until I get to the next town.

  • Day 124

    Day 124

    I’m trying to get back to my run schedule. But feeling tired generally.

    What happened : I had two great runs last two days, doing about 4 miles each day. It was hard to breath until couple miles in. I was easily get winded. Legs are still tired. I am hoping tonight run would be better. Overall, I think this recovery period is much better than the last. Also, my knees and ankles are not hurting. Both of my left and right ankles are strong (I rolled them two weeks ago). They were ready on race day.

    Looking ahead, I have a backpacking/ camping trip (50 miles hike) this coming weekend. We have next Monday off for Memorial Day. It will be a four days trip, the longest ever for me.

    Next week, I will be running the Baltimore 10 miler. I plan to run a half marathon the following day, though haven’t registered for the Half yet.

    I went to church last night. It helped me to refocus and I needed it. We continue to learn about the meaning of belief, which is a strong conviction.

    It reminds me to think about my conviction of my running. When I don’t feel like running, I have to go back to my fundamental belief. What do I know about running and why do I run, and what do I hope to accomplish. It is not that I ever will doubt myself, but thinking deep about it, propels me forward.

    I believe the more I run, the better I get at it. I believe that I will improve and run faster and longer. I believe I could get at least a 3:30 time for my marathon. Breaking 3 though is a stretch — currently I don’t think it is within my ability but I need to grow my faith. Because of what I believe, I act upon it by going out and run.

    Spirit controls the soul and body. Spirit is the mind or where ideas come from.

  • Post marathon blue

    Day 110
    Not sure if it is actually real thing, but I’m suffering post marathon blue. I guess when you get such a runner high and a week later you feel normal life is too normal.

    The cure is, of course, to go back out and run. I returned to semi formal training but don’t have a plan yet. I should draw one up tonight. I have run every other day this week. Been a bit too lazy to write about. We have really good running weather in the DC area. Got to take advantage of it before it get mucky and hot when summer comes.

    Everything though been pretty quiet. I am still doing my work at work, cheer! That is expected of me, right? Some people want to know. I am getting my work done and nothing much to say about it.

    I am frustrated on a number of things. I don’t want to share about it or know how to share them tactfully. The boiling point was Friday. I was going to run in the 5k after work to take some steam off, but as I rushed to the race course in Crystal City, there was no race. There was no announcement of cancelation. A bunch of other runners shoe up too. We were just walking around looking for race information. There was nothing posted online either. Well, that was that. I haven’t paid for it. But still I was uncontrollably mad. So mad. Not so much at the race organization, but at life itself of being so unlucky. Any way. Moving on. I did use the time off ‘from running’ effectively. I visited my family.

    I did something I have never done before today by going a pre race run event. In two weeks, I will run in the Frederick Half Marathon. This morning, a local running group was doing a course preview run (they had it as 12 miles instead of the full course). It was really nice. I think I ran with 150 others who will be in the race. It was good to kind of see who is at your pace. People were very friendly. By the way I was almost hit by a car, and it was totally my fault. I ran out in an intersection without thinking to stop to check for traffic. Luckily I hear the car engine and jumped back. The car zoomed by and I was ok. Otherwise, I would have been out of this world. I’m OK.

    I haven’t completely recovered from my last marathon. My muscles are fine, it is just the breathing. No matter how deep I breath, I don’t feel I get the air and energy. I feel my breathing is very shallow.

    I hope to do my long run tomorrow.

  • Recovery

    Day 96

    I spent last few days on recovery. Basically no running. Nothing much to say. Today is the fourth day but still I feel tired. I have not recovered 100%. I feel it is a little over 50% and maybe at 60%. I am glad to be healthy though. I should be ready for the next race. I haven’t taken this many days off from running since maybe 5-6 weeks ago.

    I had a quick short run last night. It was my first run after the half marathon. My muscles were screaming after a mile in. I kept on for couple more miles. I might need tonight off. That was a good feeling. I haven’t had that kind of stress on my legs for a long time. Surprisingly running the Half wasn’t painful as my recovery run was. I know pain is bad but I think I know what I am doing. It wasn’t the kind of pain that need a doctor. It was just the muscles were tight. I didn’t stretch before running.

    This week is supposed to be another 40 miles week. I will see how my body reacts. I will be lucky to get in 20 miles.

    Then there will be 3 weeks of tapering. I felt I haven’t work out that hard, so really not sure how much to taper off. I probably will limit myself to 30 miles total. Or I will push my max training for another week and limit my tapering to only two weeks. My marathon is a little less than a month away. I know the next three weeks will come by fast.

  • Expectation

    I would like to believe that I am somehow better than last year in term of having greater endurance after completed all those marathons. I can tough through anything. Anyhow these last few weeks after my marathon (wow almost a month now), I am feeling very lethargic and it brought me down a notch. I would like to think that I am just unmotivated or even lazy. And I would like to blame my body. I don’t know. Probably both. I made a lot of excuses on not running but probably my body isn’t ready yet to run. (more…)