Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Recovery




As the video says, it's a long road up to recovery.

After the Superior Spring 50k, I actually felt pretty good. Two days post-race, I ran three miles down Summit, and proceeded to run 4 miles the next several days. I didn't have much pep in my legs, but then that is to be expected after a race where you leave everything on the course as I did.

Over two weeks later, after a lot of 4- and 5-mile days, I still don't have all my pep back. More annoyingly, I've developed some definite ITBS symptoms. This is something I have never really had to deal with before, so I am a bit discouraged by the course events have taken.

Fortunately I have been reading "Anatomy for Runners," a book I highly recommend to any runners out there who think they might lack strength or flexibility in key areas. With this, I have a few ideas as to which exercises I can do to mitigate ITBS and be sure it doesn't come back again.

My assumption is that this is a result of my taking on a highly technical course after not practicing enough on technical trails. The mud and leaf sludge I ran through probably didn't help a whole lot. Going forward, in addition to working on the strength and flexibility exercises I've found to treat this particular injury, I want to work on more technical running as much as possible.

Difficult, but not impossible, here in the twin cities. I know one section of the river gorge trail that might be technical enough, and it has the distinct advantage of being on one of the larger hills on that trail, so I can work technical training and hill training at the same time.

I hope that I can get through this quickly.