Even though I felt like my body recovered from this marathon faster than ever, I still spent the entire past week being a lazy blob. I believe in total recovery for at least a full week post-marathon. I move as little as possible and eat as much as possible. I don’t do any type of exercise. I spend the week trying to gain some weight and see what it feels like to be inactive. It makes me really miss my usual active lifestyle and gets me fired up about training hard again.
Last week I was super successful with my recovery. I only walked on the treadmill one day to get my 3.1 miles in for the Race for Recovery. Other than that I did nothing. It helped that Jeff was out of the country and I was full time parent to Currie which left me little time to do any exercise anyway.
I went out and bought lots of crafty things like this gingerbread house kit and let Currie go to town on it. She says she’s going to be “an artist”.
Laziness felt good at first, and horrible by the end. I was itching to run or do some sort of exercise. On Monday, I finally got my opportunity. Jeff arrived home from Paris and I did 4 easy miles on my favorite out and back loop. No watch. No worries. Just a nice, easy, relaxed 4 miles. It felt awesome! I stopped by Starbucks on the way home and the barista gave me free coffee. Score!
The funny thing is, I was thinking on the run how the barista should give me free coffee because we spend so much money in that place. There’s something to think about for all of you The Secret (book) fans.
And that’s how this week will look. I will run every day, somewhere between 3-5 miles and all the running will be super easy. The next few weeks will probably look the same.
There is a new race in Rochester this year called the Reindeer Run 5k and I’m dying to do it because as you probably noticed I’m a little obsessed with racing. Also, I’ve never done a Christmas-y type race and I would love to run with bells and antlers and see how much fun (or annoying) those props would be. The race is this Saturday and I already told Jeff he can run instead of me. He gives up so much of his own racing for mine and since I’ll be less than 2 weeks post-marathon it’s not necessary for me to jump right back in! It should be fun cheering for Jeff and all the other local runners! As of Monday, they had 1,111 entrants for this brand new race. Pretty cool!
How do you recover post-marathon? Do you enjoy your lazy time or like to get back into it?
I enjoy approximately 2-days of lazy, and then I get this feeling I describe as “foggy”. I feel like I NEED to sweat to clear out the fog. Mental.
Your body will be thankful for the week off! I didn’t give it my all at CIM, so I felt okay about only taking 3-4 days off afterwards.
I’m gonna go make someone give me free coffee. Is that how the secret works? 😉
That’s a great description – I definitely get that foggy feeling too. It makes the first run back magical!
Who knows how “the secret” works! 😉 It’s funny because in the same week 3 friends recommended I read it. I did, and I guess what I took from it is that I pretty much already do most of the stuff in the book and my life is pretty good. But bad stuff happens to me too and I don’t think it’s because I wasn’t thinking the “right things” or the “right way” or whatever. I don’t think my mom could have cured all her cancers with her mind. And I don’t think she got cancer in the first place because of anything she thought. I think she has healed so well because she has the desire to live and she’s a joyful person. I think the book gives false hope in many ways…
But yes, on your next run you should definitely think about getting free coffee – “make it yours in your mind” and see what happens. 😉 Then report back to me!
I wish I were as smart as you and took a whole week off after a marathon. Next time, I will be doing just that for sure! My last marathon was June 2nd and I felt SO good afterwards that I went for a 6 mile run just two days after the race. Not a good idea…at all. The top of my foot began hurting during that run and now, over six months later, I’m still battling that foot injury! Who knows if it would have happened even if I had taken a proper rest but I’ll never know.
In the meantime, I’m going to practice rules from The Secret and my foot will get better, right?!
I have no problem with taking days off from running, unless I don’t have to be at work. I’ve enjoyed some guilt-free rest days these past two weeks! One of my personal training clients back in the day recommended “The Secret” to me so I bought the DVD and watched it… Pete did NOT approve. He said it seemed cultish, but I appreciated what the underlying message was, mainly to think positively about what you want your life to be. I don’t know if I agree with other parts of it, but I do think that positive, focused people tend to have more good things happen to them!
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