Rebuilding Phase

Post-marathon is an interesting phase.  I've taken a keen interest in things like pizza and alcohol, not running as often as I was, and faster intensities when I do run.   Seems like I'm also not that motivated when I get home when its pitch black out too.   Oh and then my achilles tendon has gone past the point of guessing - its tendinitis, and I need to stay off for a while.

So what do I do?

Well I am going to take up some cardio alternatives

Spinning - I've actually been spinning quite a bit - about once a week during my training.  It's a fun activity and good for getting my HR to practice being in a variety of zones, and having to work hard on and off.  Believe me, its tough to go all out, then try again.  Even with a rest - your body likes to turn off a bit.  So with a proper warm up and practice and timing yourself not to push it 100% each time (maybe 95%).  

Anyways to keep up interest, I've been adding little things to my biking/spinning (I have a tri bike on a fluid trainer as well).  I've been adding ant+ sensors to track with my garmin (310xt) and well I have bike shoes that I've never used (I switched form clipless pedals to baskets (I hate falling) so with useless shoes, I was proud of myself for buying and switching the cleats to an SPD cleat.  I should be able to use that to spin now.  Cool.

Aqua running (Deep water) - This is considered good cross training for running - better than biking (as it uses the same muscles/motions - back of leg vs front of leg) and because its in the water, there's no impact + thus a good recovery practice.   It may help to use a floatation device in deep water but not necessary (just have to tread).  The first time I tried it, I thought the gym pool would have a float belt (Goodlife) as the prior gym (Extreme) did.  Well at my location anyway.  So I was excited for deep end stuff because the old pool was also just a lane pool at the same depth of 5'.

So there I was trying to figure it out - do I use the rescue bouy? No that's probably not smart.  So I pick up a couple of pool noodles and float on them like a little kid.  I was certainly a laughing stock in my mind.  The best part is the pool is exposed by a windowed walkway into the gym, and another one by the heavy weights area.  I'm sure people thought I was the biggest douche they've ever seen in the pool but they were polite enough not to laugh.    I hope you get a good laugh reading it.  I acted though as it was manly as heck as I am manly taking my injury seriously and trying not to run on it unlike the weekend where I was sprinting along up and down Mount Royal in Montreal.  


Okay maybe one or two pics to keep my blog interesting:

(view from popular lookout on mountain)

Weights - haven't explored this yet, but I will probably work on hip flexors/core and leg muscles, and back.  It's a good time to get my body back in order before the next round of training.


Thanks for reading!