Thread is half an excuse to show of my little achievment but could also do with some advice. Did this 'Relay for Life' which is a 24 hour event in aid of fighting cancer over the weekend. Ended up doing 150 laps of a 400m track during my shifts. The boasting part is I did the marathon distance of 105 laps in less that 3 hours running which needless to say ****ed me up big time. Never done anywhere near this sort of distance. Anyway how the hell do I recover from this? It took me hours to be able to walk with any semblence of normality (people at the shops thought I was taking the **** out of this disabled guyatsch) I went for a very light jog this evening because I fear seizing up. I dont think I'm injured just stiff. I'm going to take three days of, do you guys recomend more or less? Anyway to speed up the recovery? I'm stretching all the time atm but if I'm sitting down for more than a few minutes it hurts like hell to move my legs.
Having a very similar issue right now. 3 days might be a little soon, depending on your age. Light cardio will do you better than just bed rest - even if it's just walking your dog or going shopping. Getting the blood moving will help the healing process.
Actually, I've been told by serious runners that you're supposed to take an ice bath to speed your recovery. You're going to need more than 3 days. Just walk and stretch a lot and rest.
First 24 hours is always cold 'treatment' eg ice packs, ice bath. After 24 hours heat can be used eg hot packs, heat rub or after 24 hours alternate hot/cold application (eg for foot injury get two buckets - one ice water the other as warm as tolerable - and alternate the injured foot from warm to cold to warm etc in about 30 seconds to 1 minute durations). This really gets the blood moving - which is what needs to happen.
Cold contracts the muscles and literally squeezes out the toxin riddled blood while the warm opens up the blood vessels and expands the muscle to allow fresh blood, proteins, etc. back into the damaged areas. Give it a try :good
My Physics teacher happened to be an elite-level marathon runner and the things she told us about running are about the only thing I remember from that class :yep
Cheers for the advice. It's largely what I wanted to here since that's what I've been trying to do with the hot and cold. I can now walk in a straight line which is allways good. Just signed up for my first 10K race on Sunday, I'm hoping with the right rest I'll be flying by then. I've ****ed it up though, the guy who did the registration asked for my estimated 10K time. Told him it's my first one but I can do a relatively comfortable 18 minute 5K, he immediantly said I would be starting with the 36 minute lotatsch. Caught up with the guys obvious passion for running and my own inflated opinion of myself it wasn't till I left that I realised I'm gonna make a complete tit of myself trying to run at that sort of pace in a race. :verysad