How long does it take you to recover from a workout?

Yesterday, I was running on the Mallard Creek Greenway with Nathan and Jon. To set the stage, I'll break down what we were doing. Nathan covered 10 miles or so with us while I stayed with Jon for 24 of his 26 miles. For whatever reason, my body just didn't bounce back very quickly afterward. In fact, for the remainder of the day my body was dragging. My quads and knees felt sore and stiff.

Even thou, I have done many of these runs before, I don't always do the best things before, doing, and afterward.

Going into the workout, I made sure to be well hydrated and thought I was well carbo loaded. Afterward, I started consuming water when I returned to my car and when I got home; I made sure to put some easily digestible food into my tummy.

The one thing that I didn't do is I didn't drink or eat anything during the run. The morning was cool and I was not planning to run all that hard.

Somewhere around 22 to 23 miles, I really started to feel it. My body and especially legs just didn't have any bounce. Running down hill my legs seemed to be revolting against my every movement. Jon even mentioned that I didn't seem to be running as well.

Another thing that I didn't do was that I didn't stretch when I finished. Probably because I felt so tired, I just changed shoes and headed home. Although, I didn't do everything wrong. I did do about 10 minutes of walking to help drain off the lactic acid in my legs.

I thought others might be interested in this topic. Normally, within an hour of completing my workout, my recovery has reached a level where I am ready to go for the rest of the day.

Yesterday, this didn't happen for me.

 

Thoughts from the Cool Down Runner