Long Run Recovery
I mentioned here that I signed up for a 100 mile ultra marathon at Moab in a couple of months…
Since signing up I’ve been running with a sense of focus and fear I haven’t had since, ever. I decided to enter my first marathon after realizing I’d accidentally trained enough to run one, so I didn’t feel any pressure while training. It was the Rock N Roll marathon at Tempe Arizona, and because the price at the expo was the same whether I signed up for the full or the half, I got my money’s worth. I felt pressure the night before, when I wondered what I’d done, and whether I’d be the under-trained guy who collapsed at mile twenty, dead. But no pressure during training.
Subsequent marathons, I knew I could complete the run based on miles trained. No pressure.
But a hundred miles is a different proposition. During a hundred mile run, from what I’ve read, two things are certain.
1) Things will go wrong. There are too many moving parts. Something always happens that requires a person to be flexible and adept at embracing new realities. Read Scott Jurek’s Eat and Run for a catalog of how a champion overcame everything chance could throw at him, including running a hundred miles on a broken ankle, and winning. Or head over to UltraRunner Podcast for a roundup of the entire sport, with links to everything interesting, ever.
2) The physical aspect of the race is important. You have to train, of course. But equally important is the mental, and that’s what is almost impossible to train for.
Naturally, my hope is that I’m wrong and that the training schedule I’ve adopted, and my considerable research, will prepare me mentally for the hardship to come. One of the things that makes the prospect of running 100 miles so appealing is exactly that, though: it’s impossible to predict what will happen under that kind of stress. It’s like a soldier wondering what he’ll do in battle, or a politician wondering how he’d fare when blindsided by a question about his dirty past. My great hope is twofold, that the challenges that come are so profound that I do not emerge the same person at the end, and second, that whatever I emerge as, is better than what I started with. I don’t want to run 100 miles and be transformed into a total shithead, you know.
SO that leads me full circle to the point of today’s post. I’ve been hitting the miles hard. Sunday I watched football and worried about my back. I took a muscle relaxer and then Monday ran 22 miles. Tuesday, I had another epidural in my L5 S1 region, and then hit the treadmill for 10 miles. So for the seven days ending yesterday, I’m at 58 miles of training. Starting from a three-month hiatus due to back pain that saw me gain twenty pounds.
I’m actually dumbfounded and thrilled by how good I feel. I’m thirty pounds heavier than I’d like to be on race day, but I’m not approaching training with a particular weight loss goal. I know I’ll burn a lot of fat so I’m not fixated on hitting 190. I know I’ll hit 200, and because I’ve seen people do astounding things with bodies that don’t look like they fit into a Calvin Klein underwear shoot, I’m not stressing the weight.
Why do I feel so good, then?
I think I’ve broken the code. Found the Elixir, the Fountain of Youth.
I’ve read a lot of runner’s blogs and books, articles about optimal health and whatnot, and they all seem to believe that although post run recovery is of paramount importance, the best you can do is consume the right amount of carbs and protein, sit in an ice bath, etc.
I’ve been a believer in vitamins forever, but there doesn’t seem to be a consensus in their favor. My logic, though, is simple. If I’m going to put a tremendous strain on my body, that’s going to create deficits that need to be filled. Aside from glycogen depleted and minerals sweat out, there’s wear and tear on every body system. If we can all agree that eating a 48 ounce steak will produce a different recovery result than fruit and black beans, or peanut butter and jelly, then we’re in essence agreeing that what we put into our bodies matters; that is, some things are better than others. Once we’ve agreed to that, the argument becomes simple. If researchers have figured out what the body loses, and what it needs to recover, then giving the body just that should improve recovery.
So I went to Supplement Superstore, where I know a few of the guys, (all of them look like Ahnold) and asked what they use for recovery. The consensus is in the photo below.
After runs of more than 1 hour, I take a scoop of each, mix it in water, and within a couple of hours feel ready to run again. The big test was the last two days: a 22 miler, followed by 10. I quit after ten because of treadmill boredom. I have had no muscle soreness or aches. Nothing else in my running has changed, so I attribute feeling great to the products below.
If you happen to try them, let me know how they work for you.
