Resting and Recovery

It's been 5 days since the marathon and I'm really enjoying my week off of running to rest and recover. I'm not gonna lie, Sunday my legs, back, hips, and feet all hurt like the devil. I couldn't sit down or stand up without a pretty impressive effort. The stairs were a nightmare, and poor Taber ended up having to do a lot of kid and house duty on Father's day because I was useless.

Monday I felt greatly improved in all areas but my quads, which still really hurt. So I splurged and got a massage and asked the lady to mostly just focus on my lower back and legs. I am now a HUGE believer in the healing power of massage because the next day my legs felt 90% better! I only had a little bit of soreness but could actually climb the stairs without using the arm rail to pull myself up.

By Wednesday I was pretty much back to normal. Today all muscle soreness is gone but I'm just dealing with some knee pain and of course some pain in my IT bands which I expected. I did Pilates on Tuesday and today and have been stretching and doing a few strengthening exercises for my glutes because apparently that's supposed to help your IT bands. I have tentatively scheduled my return to running jog for Monday, but if I'm not feeling up to it I'll push it back to Wednesday. The nice thing is that my next race isn't for 2 months so I've got some time. And speaking of time, since I haven't run at all this week I've actually had time to watch a movie, go to playgroup, and mop my floors! (okay, running is no excuse for not mopping my floor, but that's the first movie I've watched in a long time! it was fun!)