Happy Monday, all! It’s a bit sad to not be writing a marathon training post right now.
I’m happy to say that marathon recovery is going well. My legs are no longer sore and I can even walk down a flight of stairs pain free! Kind of amazing how fast the body can go from insanely sore to basically normal. I wasn’t sure how easing back into working out was going to go, having never run a marathon before I didn’t know what the recovery process would be like.
Monday I was barely walking. Slight exaggeration– I was fine, just hobbling very slowly thanks to my super sore quads. Tuesday and Wednesday I was still pretty sore. On Thursday I went to a spin class at Revolve Fitness to flesh out my legs. That night I got a massage and Friday morning I felt like a new person and was able to go to yoga, no problem. Considering how sore I felt Monday I thought the recovery process was going to be a lot slower.
Saturday morning I had a pilates date with a friend at Sixth Street Pilates in the East Village. The studio is absolutely adorable and the class was a mixture of the spring board (slightly similar to the pilates tower) and the reformer. I’ll argue that for someone like me, pilates is almost harder than all the ridiculous long runs I’ve logged in the past few weeks. It seriously challenging for me to keep my abs in, they just wanna pop out all the time! I’m still not ready to jump around though, so a low impact workout was just what I needed.
This week I’m SO excited to get back to strength training. I’m literally itching to do bicep curls like you cannot imagine. As I mentioned in another blog post, I didn’t gain weight while marathon training, which was also confirmed today by my doctor. I think I ended up losing a tiny bit of muscle, though. Friday in yoga I felt a lot weaker than I usually do during chaturungas and holding plank. It’s not ideal, but it’s also not surprising. The past few weeks have been really light on strength training and I’m looking forward to ramping my workouts back up to where they used to be.
The plan right now is to stay conservative with my workouts. Even though I’m taking some classes this week that involve jumping, I’ll be modifying with the low-impact variations.
MONDAY: Rest
TUESDAY: Vinyasa Yoga
WEDNESDAY: Uplift Strength
THURSDAY: Uplift- Sculpt Fusion
FRIDAY: FIT at Mushin Mixed Martial Arts (not quite sure what this will be!)
SATURDAY: Rest
SUNDAY: Yoga
Question: How do you ease back into working out after a big race?
Great post, I love how you mentioned your marathon benefits and how you didn’t gain weight, I find it funny that people think running a marathon will make you gain weight! lots of love C
I’ve actually heard that be the case for a few people– the increase in appetite plus focus on steady state cardio can be a tough combo. I focused a lot on cross training for this reason.
Glad to hear you’re feeling great & getting back into the saddle re your workouts. I always struggle with this (my big fall race is usually followed by couch potato marathon) so I signed up for an Ironman next summer, which will force me to train all winter. That’s one way to force yourself back into it! 😉
I just found your blog & I love it so far!!
– Kate
Yeeesh I have SO much respect for you doing an Ironman, I’m a weak swimmer so I don’t think it will ever be an option for me. Definitely one way to force yourself, best of luck with training!!