Recovery and My Next Training Plan

I woke up exhausted today. I anticipated that it would happen, and also anticipated that I would hurt, but I was NOT anticipating how much. I’ve been drinking more water than I think I ever have in a day before, at least a gallon if not more. Apparently I was a little dehydrated after yesterday. I’ve also been eating a ton. Tomorrow I’ll go back to moderating what I eat a bit better, but I figure rebuilding muscle (since I definitely ripped it all apart yesterday) requires fuel. Sticking to Paleo makes it easy to make sure I’m getting lots of good nutrients – I had spinach with my breakfast, cubed frozen watermelon and fresh mango, the pork I made in the slow cooker yesterday, and a Paleo shepherd’s pie packed with veggies – but I may have gone a little excessive on the fat/protein today.

But this shepherd’s pie… it’s my favorite Paleo recipe. I am a big fan of the blog it comes from, too, but this recipe is definitely a winner. I’ve made it three times now for myself, and another time I used it to make stuffed mushrooms, which were a huge crowd pleaser. This time around I froze it in smaller sections, using a casserole dish as a mold, so that I can bake it and eat in in smaller quantities and not have to eat it for a week straight.

The final piece of recovery day was determining how much exercise – if any – I should do. After laying around all morning and considering taking the day off completely, I decided that the best plan would be to get myself to the gym and do some light movements to get the circulation going, followed by a long stretching session. Although I was tempted to pick up the pace when I saw other people working harder at the gym, I stuck to my plan, and immediately felt better. Tomorrow will be the real test, but I think I will be ready for my next training phase in the morning! Since I told my sister I’d do a half marathon with her in January, my plan now is to gradually prepare my body for that. I’m starting with a 12-16 week 10k training program. The length is variable because you’re supposed to establish a baseline of being able to do 5 days of running 3-4 miles for a few weeks “without too much discomfort” before diving into the more programmed weeks with intervals and other more intense workouts. I haven’t tried to run that many miles total in a week before, but I don’t think it’ll be an issue… I’ll try it for two weeks and reassess before I really start. I’m also probably breaking protocol a bit in that I plan to keep up going to CrossFit several times a week while I do this… which means that on some days I’ll be doing doubles.

I’m going to try to start tomorrow, with a 4 mile run in the morning and CrossFit at night, so I’m off to bed now, and maybe finally establishing some good sleep habits.