Recovery report and some summer goals

If there's one thing I've noticed about marathon recovery, it's that the amount of recovery time needed drastically decreases as the number of marathons you've run increases.  With each marathon I've completed, I've made my return to the running world much sooner than the last.  And I've found that the more you keep moving post-marathon, the more quickly recovery occurs.

After Saturday's race, I tried not to sit stationary for too long.  I sat for a bit after the race and took a mini nap (30 mins) while defrosting from my ice bath.  But other than that, I was moving around the rest of the day/evening.  On Sunday, I woke up and took Lucy for an extended walk and then wandered down to the Fremont Fair to watch my co-worker's band play and roam around for a couple hours.

Coworkers! And beer!  Fun post-marathon recovery times.

By Monday, my legs were already itching to start moving again.  They were still sore, but not nearly as bad as I'd anticipated.  I actually managed to step down all 3 steps that lead to my apartment instead of executing my typical post-marathon grab-the-handrails-swing-and-leap move.  But I was a good girl and instead went into work for a few hours to start prepping for summer school.  I ended up just doing another long Lucy walk later in the day and stilled the restlessness in my legs with half a bottle of delicious wine and some girl talk that evening.

By Tuesday though, I was craving some sort of physical exertion.  I know it's ridiculous to feel "lazy" 3 days after running a marathon, but I did.  In large part because, while I am still trying my best to take a positive stance towards my not-so-fun marathon, I felt like I hadn't really and truly given it my all in the race and therefore didn't feel justified in relishing in post-marathon immobility.

Side note: thanks for all the reassuring FB comments.  You guys make me feel awesome when I'm not really feeling all that awesome.

So, I woke up Tuesday morning and took my routine 30 minute Lucy walk before heading in to work for the first day of summer school.  Everything went swimmingly and I was out the door by noon headed back towards Seattle and a date with Green Lake.  I was still hanging on to an ill-conceived belief that I wouldn't run for a week, so instead I met Ironman MacKenzie and Ironman Jason at the Green Lake bathhouse for our first open water swim of the summer season (not Jason's first, but me and MacKenzie's).  

I reacquainted myself with Green Lake.  We became best friends again.  I quickly recalled that I shouldn't think about the fact that I am swimming in Green Lake (eww) while actually in Green Lake.  I tried not to freak out too much when the seaweed floated into my face, and recalled fondly the days of smelling like neoprene from last summer.  It truly felt like summer again.

And the swim actually worked wonders for my recovery.  My back and neck, which had been more sore than my legs, felt amazingly loose and much better post-swimming.  My legs even loosened up a bit.  All in all, the first open water swim of the season was a success.

I did learn, courtesy of my fancy new Garmin 910XT, that I suck at
swimming in a straight line.

I took it easy again on Wednesday, trying to continue to be a good girl and not run.  So I did this instead:

Wednesday brunch complete with extra spicy Bloody Mary?  Yes, please.

But then today came.  And today, I felt no desire to "take is easy."  So I didn't.  First, I taught my half day of summer school and spent a couple hours starting to pack up the classroom.  Then I took another dip into Green Lake with Ironman Jason.

If you thought the first swim was bad, this makes me look drunk.
I wasn't.  Promise.  It kind of looks like a squid.  Or armless Frogger, mid-jump.
I totally did it on purpose.

And then, just a short hour later, Erica and I went for an "easy" recovery run (oops, still sub-9 pace) around Green Lake.  While I felt more winded than usual (something that seems to always happen to me post-marathon), my legs felt strong and I couldn't feel any soreness left in them.

Lucy's been helping with the healing of the blister, so I only felt a few
little pinches from it (I know, gross again, but that's true love right there).

Green Lake and I were the best of buds today.  I expect we'll have another date in the very near future.

Tomorrow is shaping up to be another pretty active day.  After a morning Lucy walk (and maybe a little yoga if I'm super motivated), I'm planning to take Old Reliable (yep, I decided to name my bike) out for her (or his?  I'm not sure yet) first spin of the season.  I want to do an easy 20 miles on the Burke and try to gauge how much seat time I'm going to need to put in to get things back in not-so-painful shape.  Then I've got a date with the Puget Sound, 2 stand up paddle boards, and my co-worker/also-not-working-for-the-summer friend Natalie.  This will be my first paddle boarding experience and am I'm super excited for it.  Natalie happens to own the 2 paddle boards so there will hopefully be many repeat forays in the sound in the future.  The weather is looking like it's going to be a scorching 80 degrees, which will be amazing.

And now that it truly feels like summer, and probably will even more so once the weather catches up tomorrow, it's time to set some summer goals.  If you remember, I set some pretty awesome summer goals last year, and then being the teacher I am scored myself in my Summer Goals Report Card.  Unsurprisingly, I  passed by "leaps and bounds."  This summer I have fairly similar goals with some slight alterations.  I've attempted to set myself up for even more success this summer.  Here goes:

Side note #2: This post is getting really long.  I won't be offended if you have to take a break and come back later.  In fact, I'll never know and then I'll think I have an amazing amount of pageviews for this post which will make me feel like the best blogger ever.

Summer Goals 2013

1)  Do different stuff.  Vague yes, but let me explain.  Since the start of Goofy training back in September, I've been doing nothing but run.  After my performance this past weekend, I'm kind of happy to put running a little further down the list for a while and focus on different things.  It won't disappear completely, it just may not be top priority for a while (which will probably mean running 2-3 times a week instead of 4-5).  This week I have been REALLY excited to do things that aren't running (swimming, soon biking and paddle boarding too).  I almost even bought a Groupon for 15 Crossfit classes, but then it was sadly sold out.  I'm keeping my eyes open for more though.

2)  Write more.  And write other stuff.  This was a goal last summer in which I gave myself the score of "semi-satisfactorily accomplished."  I wrote a decent amount of blog posts, but failed at writing anything else.  This summer I've set myself up for success.  I signed up for a fiction and short story writing class through the University of Washington, so unless I completely bomb the first college class I've taken since grad school, I think I've got this one in the bag.

3)  Enjoy teaching summer school.  I taught summer school last summer, but it was just a time filler.  I knew I'd get bored if I wasn't at least doing a little bit of work.  This year, I signed up again because it worked out perfectly last summer (2 days a week, 3 hours a day--just enough to keep me busy, but not too much to kill the whole summer).  I also thought I could take advantage of the afternoons down south to pack up the classroom a little at a time and cart everything up north bit by bit.  But really, I want to enjoy teaching the last moments I have at my current school.  It's going to be really hard to say goodbye, so I'd like to milk every minute I have with my Federal Way kiddos and coworkers.

4)  Lots of Lucy time.  Obviously.  Wouldn't want to get so caught up in everything else that I forget about the extra Lucy-dog cuddle time that summer allows me.

5)  Vary my cooking.  Last summer, the official grade for this one was: BIG FAIL.  I stuck to my peanut soy sauce noodle dish the same way I've stuck to it all year, with very minor variations in between.  I worry about setting this as a goal again, but I'm going to attempt it.  I've started getting a produce box delivered once a week, which has slightly varied my produce choices.  And I'm still set on visiting the farmers' market every Friday night.  I'm crossing my fingers I do better on this one this summer.  But I'm not holding my breath.

6)  Train for, and complete, a half-Ironman.  Yeah, this one's kind of a big deal.  I've got a race picked out (the Black Diamond long course on September 15--my dad's bday!), but I haven't committed to registration yet.  Although I'm pretty committed to the idea of it.  Ironman MacKenzie has already told me she'd join me, and since she's also a school employee off for the summer, this works out perfectly for training together.  And we're hoping to convince Ironman Kelly to join us too (Ironman Kelly, are you reading this??  You're being called out on the internet.  Now you must do it).  So there's that.

I think 6 is a nice, even, round enough number for summer goals.  I do have a new classroom to move into, a new school to get to know, and a new district to try to understand while I do all of this.  And only 2 months of "free time."

Let's get this summer started.

Cuddling commence.