Good Morning

I woke up this morning feeling surprisingly refreshed. The tear rendering pangs of pain in my knees were a slight fraction of what they were last night, and the majority of my aches & soreness were contained in my quadriceps. Overall, it was a rapid recovery from the pile of post-run wreckage I had become less than 24 hours ago. Steps are still hard to handle after the monotony of moving past perpetual patches of pavement for 3 straight hours, but that's far from a complaint. I'm relieved that my body figured out what it needed to repair while I was sleeping and got on it over night. Of course I actively aided this recovery prior to going to bed with a fine hot bath, ice, & rest routine.

Today's cross training was little more than strolling around at a casual shuffle. I focused on strength training where possible, endurance over bulk, and threw in a prolonged bout of stretching to round everything out. As well as alternating ice & heat on my knees throughout the day. Ultimately, I would have enjoyed some cycling today, but I really didn't want to push it too much, and feel like I made the right (safe) choice by limiting the cross training to near leisurely activities. If nothing else, marathon training has honed my skills at listening to my body during & after runs. I'm certainly no expert, but I've learned a thing or two about a thing or two these past 13 weeks, and I've continuously surprised myself at how far I can actually go. I think back to when 2 miles was a daunting distance that seemingly tested the boundaries of my humanity, and it seems like nothing anymore. There's only one more bump in the LSD runs left in the training program, it's the 20 miler 2 weeks from now, and that's it: the marathon is all that remains. So it goes...be well peoples.