Storm after the calm

Five weeks after the 100 and now the dust has settled I can say definitively that recovery is a long and complicated process.

A few niggles have settled in despite gentle but regular moving. I'm borrowing the concept of 'moving' from Emily Forsberg as I'm definitely not training, just using short easy runs, walks and strength work to keep mobile, promote blood flow and stop me going mad. Unusually for me it was 4 weeks before I got a post-race massage. The massage was as unpleasant as I expected and although it helped, there is still something not right about my left ankle/base of Achilles. My back is bothering me more than usual too but I suspect that might be down to doing more, and more varied, strength work so hamstrings and glutes are working harder than they've needed to for a while. Hopefully things will settle down over the next few weeks.

Mentally I'm a bit all over the place. It sounds silly maybe, but running 100 miles has given me a quiet confidence that even when at work people are rude or belittle me or show no respect, I just think to myself that I ran 100 miles and they never could dream of attempting it, and it makes me feel better about myself. On the other hand for some reason it's been really hard remembering what day it is and when I have to go to work. It must be a remnant of that wonderful timeless bubble running the 100, where nothing existed other than movement. Work isn't easy at the moment either and it feels jarring to be stuck inside stinky classrooms all day. It's odd too not having that drive of having to get the miles in and I actually miss those stupid o'clock journeys to Goring for recce runs! But I think my mind is recovering more quickly than my body though as this week the idea of running a bit longer than 5 or 6 miles and for more than an hour feels like something I want to do. My body isn't so sure however, and still seems to want to stop after about 60 minutes.

With time on my hands I've been thinking about next year's running and wondering what to do. I know I want to run more 100 milers but the last couple of weeks have made me wary of running more than 1 in a year although I suppose the more I do the better my body will get at recovering. So far the plan is to return to A100 and aim for a decent sub-24 hour time and also go for a much improved 100k time. Having said all that though, I don't want to do loads of races as what I did this year seemed to work very well in terms of fitness and getting 100 mile ready.

Next year may also have a couple of surprises- one is dependent on ridiculous odds in a ballot, the other is a step into a new venture (or possibly steps into two new ventures). More on those if and when...

I am beginning to realise that nothing is will be the same after running 100 miles. It has been a genuinely life-changing experience.

Walking

In this strange recovery period I've started to take at least one walk every day. Nothing long, often just 10- 20 minutes simply to get some fresh air and stretch my legs. It feels so odd to not run every day and to feel tired when I do run, but the need and desire to move every day is still there.

A little chat with Phil today about recovery and training ended with what ought to be a very welcome piece of advice:

decondition and get a bit fat

But that's probably the thing I find hardest to do even though I completely understand why it's necessary. I don't have a great figure at the best of times and when I lose condition and gain a little weight all that happens is I get a wobbly belly and can't fit into any of my clothes comfortably. I hate it!

So I'm trying to find a balance between letting my body really recover, getting good nutrition in every day and moving regularly. Hence the walking. And sometimes a walk is great because just a few minutes from my house this evening I saw this:

Recovery Rollercoaster

It's three weeks now.

Three weeks since I had the best time running.

I'm not liking 'normal' life- everything feels dull and blunted somehow compared to 24 hours and 33 minutes of running around the TP and Ridgeway. At the same time the race feels unreal too. Seriously having trouble believing it happened.

Recovery has been a strange experience so far. I've been running 3 or 4 times a week but slowly and not very far except on Wednesday when I did 8miles (with walk breaks) and totally wiped myself out. This week I started back moving some weight around which feels good while I'm doing it but the DOMS have been pretty bad. I'm not forcing myself to train and I'm not pushing myself particularly when I do train but today it's struck me that actually I'm fatigued on a deep level both in mind and body.

No idea what to do about that.

I think keeping moving in some way is a good thing to do, if only because I struggle to sit still and do nothing- I get cross as well as stiff and sore, and I can't restrict my calorie intake to the 1300-ish I'd only need if I wasn't taking any exercise. What is proving hard to work out is what and how much it's sensible to be doing. I'm so used to pretty much everything in life being about struggle and striving that I'm a bad judge of when to train and when to rest and when to push through, when to take things really easy.

Race plans are slowly taking shape for the coming year. I'm having a real crisis over the 100 mile distance. I REALLY want to run more 100 milers. But I can see already that recovery is a complex thing and probably I only need one thing to not go right and suddenly recovery becomes a thing that will take months and months and scupper chances of doing anything else.

Why is that a problem? Well I'm torn between wanting to try a different 100 miler and going back to Autumn 100 to get that 100 Miles in A Day buckle- I was so close to that quite by accident I think it's worth going for on purpose next time. But there's the rub- I think having a very specific goal for a race means the focus has to be on a year getting ready to achieve it. Which means only doing one 100 miler next year. I realise people do run several in a year but at A100 I saw how tough that can be, how much it took out of far better and far more experienced runners than me and I'm not sure I have the resources or support to manage that level of recovery. 

So I still have a lot of thinking and soul-searching to do. And learning how to recover...