Recovering

I’m still recovering from the injury so the past couple days have been workouts of a different sort. I went to the trails and scretched through them on my bike. I forgot how much I enjoy going out there and riding. I am going to check out a few other trails on the bike for fun.

Today I went to the track and ran some speed drills. I repeated 800s until I was nearly dizzy. It’s good to feel workout pain because then I can reward myself with Mexican food.

Late last night I landed in Houston and was home by about 1:45am. I only ran one day during my vacation and only for a couple miles. It’s important for me to give my legs some vacations from the stress and damage of running a few times a year. That said, I’m looking forward to running about five miles today.

I was up in Dallas this weekend for a bachelor’s party, so I wasn’t able to do much running. When I returned this morning, I went out for a short five mile run and realized that I still have a lot of recovery left to do.

My muscles aren’t hurting like the did the first day I ran after the race, however, I don’t have the energy I need. It was also a little odd to run in 78 degree whether in the middle of February. I can’t believe it’s this warm down here. Oh well, I guess it makes for more runnable running days.

I guess that drinking a pedialyte-type drink has become more popular outside of endurance sports. Athletes I know who run ultras have been doing it for years after long races. I typically make my own rather than buying the stuff at the store. It’s easy enough to do and a lot cheaper.

Here is what you need to mix together:

• 8 level teaspoons of sugar
• 1 level teaspoon of table salt
• 1/2 cup of orange juice
• 1 liter of water

Don’t use artificial sweeteners or fructose (fruit sugar) in the place of regular sugar as it won’t provide sufficient energy.

This was a pretty nice weekend for my running. I didn’t run at all on Friday, because I wanted some recovery time. But I ran 21 miles on Saturday, a 7 mile trail run today, and finished the day with a 5K club run which I finished in 25 minutes and 23 seconds. All in all, not too bad for a weekend.

Ugh, I so didn’t feel my run today. After two days of running 6.7 miles, I think that my legs wanted to reject me when I tried to go on another longer run. It’s probably not the distance that is the problem but the terrain.

I have moved to a place with a lot more hills than I am used to running. This certainly causes more of a work out than just running on flat ground. I like it because I feel like it will prepare me for more challenging terrains, but I don’t really like it for a fun run.

This is too bad but I feel like I should take a day off tomorrow.

That’s Fit has a post about running with the proper nutrition. Both on longer runs and before the runs, I think it’s very important for any runner to get the proper nutrition. For me, one of my favorite things to eat before running is a banana. I will usually eat one as a snack during the day or the night before a long run. I’m also a fan of carbs and will eat a lot of bread and tortillas throughout the week.

During a run I like to eat a little bit of sugar such as a cookie or two. I also think it’s good to get some pretzels in me so that I have the salt from them. If it is really a long race, I will also stop and have some soup.

After long runs, I will usually have something like Recoverite or Endurox to help repair my muscles and speed up the recovery time. I also keep a jar of salted peanuts in my car to eat whenever I want a little pick me up. They fuel my protein, good fats, and salt to help with recovery.

How about you? What do you eat?

I have to be honest in saying that you shouldn’t hire me to be your mystery buyer. I will do some research beforehand but then I will completely betray that. I will think that I need one product but buy something else. Then I will come back home and research what I decided to get and feel bad.

That’s what happened when I was going to buy some Recoverite. I saw it at the biking store but they were selling it too high. Then a few days later, I was at the vitamin store and saw some Endurox R4 and thought that it could be alright. I was going to look up some reviews of it but was hassled a little by the salesperson.

I realized that I was in the store even though they were closed, so I felt bad enough that I grabbed the small tub of Endurox. It was the Orange Blast flavoring, so I swapped that out with Fruit Punch.

When I researched it the reviews seemed to say that it works really well which was refreshing. However, they also said that Fruit Punch was anything from gross to tasting like vomit. Every review seemed to say to stay away from Fruit Punch.

I’m happy to say that after my 4 mile hard run, I decided that I would try the Endurox for myself. I love the taste of the Fruit Punch. Maybe I just have strange tastes but I coudn’t be happier with it. I’m just hoping it helps my recovery even though I know this run doesn’t really require it but I need to be 100% because I’m planning on a 22 mile run tomorrow morning.

Today was way too rainy in Dallas for me to run. I decided to take the evening off and relax a little bit. Yesterday, I ran about 3 miles, biked 12 minutes, and then jumped rope for another 15 minutes.

Go over and congratulate Jessica on her recent sponsorship!

While I don’t like the taste, I do enjoy the end result of Recoverite. Until this year, I would just drink a lot of Gatorade and water after a long run or race. However, the people at the Ultracentric gave us a promotional packet of Recoverite and I love it!

After my 10 mile run on Monday I finished things up with a water bottle full of this. It helped me a lot with my muscle soreness the following day. I encourage you to try it if you also get sore after long runs.