Fitness

The Recovery Run

Fog and vines and funky morning light.

Fog and vines and funky morning light.

Last weekend I ran the more-brutal-than-it-should-have-been charity 15k to fundraise for the local schools. Not only did it hurt while it was happening, it left me with three blisters as a lingering reminder of the suck. And then the week came along and it was situation after situation that just kept kicking me in the ass. It was a lot like a blister: individually, none of the stuff in my week was uniquely crazy-making, but each little thing kept making the metaphorical blisters even bigger.

Because of work and life and everything being stressful, I bailed on two workouts (U-Jam with Sabrina on Thursday at lunchtime and my second session of the week doing Pilates with Gini). By Saturday, I was kind of unbearable to be around. My running partner wasn’t available on Saturday morning, so I slept in until the very late hour of 7:10 (!!) and skipped a solo run.

By the time we got home from the chaos of our little league baseball game in the afternoon, I pretty much needed to spend an hour in a soundproof isolation chamber to recover from the sensory overload. There’s nothing quite like managing 10 overheated boys in a small chain-link cage that they call the dugout.

I needed to take action.

Screen Shot 2015-04-19 at 7.26.54 PM

There was no question that I needed to run with or without her. Fortunately, she was still available, and I dragged myself out of bed at sunrise for a foggy morning in the vineyards.

This one wasn’t easy, either, but I wasn’t really trying. It was just an easygoing recovery run. We walked almost as much as we ran, and I was ok with that. I just needed to move and to feel like I’d accomplished something.

7.8 miles through the vineyards.

7.8 miles through the vineyards.

All in all, we logged 7.8 miles, which was longer and slower than I’d planned on, but it turns out that it was exactly what I needed. We also rode our bikes downtown for mid-afternoon lunch/dinner (linner), and I had a margarita. The trifecta of run, bike, margarita seems like the ideal trifecta for me, under the circumstances. (Hey, anyone want to turn that into a new kind of triathlon? I’m in.)

Next week will be better. Next week I will not be a crazy person. Next week I will not skip workouts because I’m too busy, because the consequences of missing them are greater than I’d expect.

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