Monday, March 31, 2008

Soreness

I'm still sore today. Well, truth be told, I'm more sore today than yesterday. But, the interesting thing is where I'm sore.

Normally, after my first tough trail run of the year, especially if it was hilly, I would be sorest in my lower quads. Right above my knee, pinching the bottom of the quadriceps muscle would be very painful. The entire muscle group would also be sore, but not necessarily to the touch.

But, I think the weightlifting has changed some things about how my body dealt with the race on Saturday. Most of my soreness is below the knees. My feet are beat up and my lower legs are sore, especially when I move my foot around. I think this is from landing on uneven ground and fighting to find good foot placements all day. My calves are sore, and this is rare for me. The last time my calves were sore after a run was at Hardrock, where I'd just climbed 33K feet, not 4600'.

Above the knee, my vastus lateralis is a bit sore, but not the vastus medials or the vastus intermedius. I'm wondering if the lunges, squats, Bulgarian split squats and other quad exercises I do hit the latter two portions of the quad more than the outer part. No matter the reason, it's nice to not have my entire quads so trashed that I can barely walk. I'm going to take the dogs out for a snowshoe walk tonight and then tomorrow, I'll slowly return to training.

This week will be a recovery week of sorts, although I want to run 20 on Saturday. Next week will be a high mileage week if all goes well, and then an easier week into my next 50K on 4/19.

The book "Good Calories, Bad Calories" continues to intrigue me. It's consistent with a lot of other ideas I've encountered in the last few years, but so opposite of major medical positions in some areas. In some ways, the book has me almost scared to eat at all, which might not be bad for me anyway. The author's real wrath is directed at white flour, white sugar, and HFCS, which are three things I'm trying to avoid anyway. But, that's easier said than done.

1 comment:

Tom Foolery said...

Damon, that soreness actually sounds like the usual for me after I have been off the trails for a while. I think it is all the small adjustments from running on rocky, uneven surface that causes it. And doing 31, you probably didn't need the surface to be very uneven.