My Running Journal, 021210

Today is a rest day, and I feel like I need it. So no running this AM. I did zero miles in zero minutes, at a pace of zero minutes/mile.

Slept in until 0630. It’s amazing how luxurious it can feel to know that you don’t have a reason to get out of bed “right now.” Which kind of made it tough to motivate myself to even stand up.

Last night was the second training session of my Crossfit Onramp experience. We focused on back squats (weight bar across your shoulders, behind your head), and kettlebell swings. After learning the proper form, we used what we learned. 5 rounds of 10 squats and 10 kettlebell swings, with a partner, and you are doing it for time. So while one person is doing the squats, the other person is swinging the kettlebell.

Being that it has been a good long time since I honestly did a back squat (sure, there probably have been dishonest ones), my partner and I opted for a relatively light weight of 95 lbs. And the kettlebell that we were swinging weighed about 26 lbs. The each round is completed when each partner has completed one set of each exercise. We finished in about 5:27 minutes. And then my legs felt like rubber bands. Sore rubber bands.

I got home, drank some water, and soaked in the tub with some Epsom salts. This morning, when I was trying to get out of bed, I was thinking about how much it was going to hurt. I think that I may have even dreamt about how much it was going to suck – wiped out muscles that are sore. But getting up wasn’t all that difficult. I’m sore, sure, and stiff, but I can move around. All of the whimpering and whining is purely for show.

Given my profession, I do actually know all of the things that I can do to deal with the soreness and pain. But I haven’t bothered with much of it. Beside some stretching and massage to deal with the pain in my hip, everything else is par for the course. When you are planning on working out, some level of soreness and pain is eventually going to enter into the equation. And being prepared to handle it goes a long way to being able to maintain.

I think that a lot of people get into training routines and get into the pain zone, and then try and figure out how to deal with it. I think that trainers should focus first on recovery strategies before they are needed – when you end up having this happen, you do this. And it doesn’t need to be explicit – encouraging people to stay hydrated (hopefully) means that their bodies can process metabolic waste from their muscles faster. Proper deep breathing techniques improve the exchange of CO2 from your lungs – and CO2 is a metabolic waste. All of that panting that you do after a strenuous workout is actually your body trying to help you in the long run. Applying heat and massage to a muscle helps it to relax and allows for increased circulation to it, which again, improves the flushing of the bad and bringing in of the new.

Not to say that deep breathing, hydration, stretching, massage and heat are all the ultimate panacea for muscle pain, but combined they go a long way. Doing the simple stuff first, before getting into needles, deep tissue massage and herbs, allows you to really explore your baseline potential. What can I do without support?