Journey to Kona Day 202: The Morning After

I never know exactly how I'll feel the morning after a long hard run, especially if it's at the end of a long hard week.  Today was no exception.  I'm tentatively feeling pretty good, although delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) and delayed onset fatigue usually manifest 36 hours after finishing a workout.  That will be tonight.  The good news is that I woke up without any major sore spots.  My low back is a little sore, which is about par for the course for how it felt most of last week!  That means it's time to get back to doing the hot yoga, which life circumstances have kept me from the last couple of weeks.  I also keep planning to do some core exercises every day, but that continues to be a life long promise that I have trouble keeping.

I woke up this morning feeling a little tired and a little sore.  I may be at the point in training where I'm underestimating both feelings because of the constant training and the constant stress on the body.  However, I didn't hobble out of bed, I just stepped gingerly out of room while my wife slept.  Last night I tole her that I might go swimming this morning, and my mental outlook for doing such is ok, not too strong, but not too tepid  I have no idea what will happen when I get to the pool, but one thing is always for sure, and that is swimming is good for my back and great for recovery.

It's always interesting how long runs tend to beat your muscles up less the more tired you are when you run them.  Yesterday's run was nearly 3 hours and 40 minutes, possibly my open marathon time these days if I were to be perfectly prepared and completely fresh. Nevertheless, another 6 miles would have brought me to an ironman level marathon.  One of the reasons that my muscles aren't too beat up is that you just can't pound on a day like yesterday.  My final downhill mile was probably done at 9:38 pace, my slowest ever.  I couldn't run much faster downhill at that point, which minimized the stress to my muscles, tendons and joints.  It also approximated what my legs would be like at the end of an ironman.  Which is also encouraging.  The last five miles of yesterdays run were done, on a hilly portion of my run course, similar to the other fifteen miles, at a pace pretty much equal to the entire run, just under 11 minutes per mile.  I'll take that at Kona.  Of course, I'd love to get that pace down to 10 minutes per mile, and that's not too ridiculous of a goal.  A good place for my mind to be on "the morning after."