All Systems Go

8K Tempo Run three days after Stormy 64K

After keeping my heart rate below 150 BPM or approximately 75% of my maximum heart rate for most of the seven hours and forty minutes it took me to finish the 64K of the Stormy Trail Race on Saturday, I was very curious to see how quickly I would recover. Nothing like a run to test out the legs!

Frankly, I'm going to have to get off my ass in at least one area. The work load I am putting my leg muscles through these days (and for the next eight weeks) is really demanding that I begin a regular routine of massages. My stretching regimen really helps, but there is no substitute for deep tissue manipulation to aide recovery. Unfortunately that usually costs a minimum of $65 an hour.

I'm either going to have to start a relationship and beg, plead and whine for a rub down once in a while in exchange for doing dishes, laundry or vacuuming from a significant other, win the lottery so I can afford a couple of sessions per week, or enter into a sordid S&M/B&D world where I alternate some kind of twisted rituals of mutual beatings and thrashings with what passes for a sort of "rub buddy". The things you have to do to resort to qualify for Boston on a budget.... But I digress.

Last night was the Tuesday night Tempo run, and as you can see from my Polar S625X heart rate chart, I didn't spare the rod any (see, it's that S&M/B&D thing cropping up already). I did feel some leg stiffness, mostly quads, and I took extra care to warm up, but once I was a few kilometres in, I felt great. Even surprisingly so. I revved my heart rate up from the low 160s to 174 after about 20 minutes and I could quite easily have continued from there to the finish.

However, Hugh, in his wisdom and experience, advised me to take it easy and I backed off with about two kilometres to go, wanting to keep my eye on the ultimate prize and not risk injury. Right now, it's Boston, Boston, Boston. We did just under 8K in 35 minutes and change. If there had been money on the line I could have run a 32 minute 8K. I was shocked, frankly, at just how good I felt, and the value of training with a heart rate monitor was never more apparent to me.

Now for Hill Training...

And maybe that friend with a fondness for leather and spanking...