Recovery.
I find it troublesome. It's an uneasy tension; breaking things down (or being broken down) with action and then attempting to cobble things together again. We seldom live in the balance between the two.
Yesterday I had had a discussion with my coach about recovery. Sunday I ran long and it went quite well in many ways (including that I didn't get hopelessly lost even though I was in Framingham running during Jordan's swim meet). I felt pleased with myself and wrote a novel about the run in painstaking detail in my Training Peaks log. The one detail I didn't really cover, however, was how I recovered, and so, inevitably perhaps, Kurt asked, So how was the recovery?
My athletes will laugh at this, because I am always asking them how they recovered, or asking them to recover, or instructing them how to recover. But when Kurt asked me I was unprepared to answer. Okay, I guess. I feel okay now. My legs aren't really trashed.
Yes, but HOW had I recovered. Had I taken an ice bath?
Umm. no. I was sitting on a hard bench watching Jordan at a swim meet. No ice bath. Just leftover egg and bagel in my lunch bag and some water. And anyway, I hate ice bathing so much that I have decided taking them is totally stupid.
We then went on to discuss the effectiveness (or not) of the ice bath. (Or, I should say, I went on and on about cold water immersion in the exercise phys. literature and he was sorta silent until the end when he said, Just do what I say, Mary.)
Anyway.
All this talk of recovery got me thinking about --- recovery.
I feel like I always am being asked to recover, or asking myself to recover, or trying to allow myself to recover. Yet my life is completely NOT set up to recover. It is set up to be a crazed lunatic. And why is that?
I think it's because we are taught from an early age that recovery is for losers.
Losers take naps.
Losers get up late.
Losers hang out on the couch eating and watching TV.
Losers snuggle under warm blankets and say "leave me the fuck alone" after a hard workout.
Winners, on the other hand, work their asses off, like ALWAYS. I was not raised by a Tiger Mother, but that doesn't mean I didn't get the message loud and clear. Work your ass off, go to a first rate school, and then keep working, cause if you don't you will be a wastrel who is an incompetent, lazy, loser.
What I find so hard about this sport is this uncomfortable tension. Work hard--work REALLY REALLY hard, but also recover, be good to yourself... listen to your body--don't overdo it-- etc etc blah blah. WHICH IS IT?
It's both, of course. I just find the balance hard to manage. I have trouble being both hard core and also committed to rest--I always seem to err too much on one side or the other. It's a problem.
I really am not a big believer in the ice bath. How can something that makes me so tense and uncomfortable be good for me after such a hard effort? I prefer heat and stretching to cold after a hard workout (that sentiment didn't go over so well in the PBM school of thought, I will add.) I try to eat after I have a hard workout, and I try to eat DURING my long workouts. But in general the minute I finish working out I have something I need to attend to: a child, dinner, work, a pressing internet life, etc. No time for naps and warm blankets and a life of leisure.
And you?
12 comments:
If it was easy, then everybody would do it and it wouldn't be any fun anymore.
That is all you ate!?
We are not good at recovery over here, either. Mostly because we literally dont have that extra 10 minutes. A MUST that squeeze in thought (I think of this as part of the workout!) is foam rolling and drinking Endurox right away. At the same time usually :)
Havent had a single injury thats prevented me from running since we got the foam roller, so not messing with it!!
I agree though, recovery is WAY harder than the workouts!
my recovery is chocolate milk, a turkey sandwich, and then running errands. i really should stretch, roll, yadda yadda, but it's hard. so very hard to get the "proper" recovery in when youre constantly running around.
I struggle with the recovery issue. I struggle with the kind to myself issue. I like to work hard and push all the time. But I am also injured, so look where that got me!! Great post and very real. I am trying to find balance...
"Losers take naps / winners work their ass off." Unfortunately it just doesn't work that way -- at least not for runners. When the Kenyan elites finish workouts, they eat and then they take a nap. Many runners think you get better while running but they really don't; improvement comes afterwards as your body responds and adapts to the stress. That may seem obvious but it also means that if you don't recover properly, the hard workout was wasted.
I got into the habit of taking naps after Petru was born and have never given them up since. I don't really nap for recovery, but for vanity and need. I look like I got hit by a train after I work out hard for a few hours. A 30 min nap gives me a new face. Also, if I don't nap after my super hard days (Sat and Sunday I work out about 7 hours total) by Tuesday I can't function, I feel like crap. That does not happen when I nap:)
I think there are 2 issues when it comes to recovery: 1) do you believe it is necessary and it works, and 2) do you feel guilty when you engage in recovery. I feel the same as you do when it comes to ice baths, the data is just not there as far as their effectiveness. However, I did come across some interesting info last year about how spinal cord injury patients who are getting shots with iced water have a higher recovery rate than those who don't, something about stopping inflammation; this got me sold. If nothing else, ice baths could work through a placebo effect - you sit in cold water and suffer, it has to work - and there is nothing wrong with that (placebo is super strong, SHAM knee replacement worked just as well as regular knee replacement in a recent study published in New England Journal of Medicine). As far as the guilt goes, I think many women think that they have been away from family way to long, and there is no way they would take additional time for recovery. I only have one child, so I got over this by ensuring that my husband gets as many hours a day off for himself, out of the house, as I get for my workouts and recovery. It works and it has solved some resentment on his part, and eliminated my guilt. This may be hard for you to do with 3 kids, but then your kids are older, and more independent, so it may work.
But, whatever you do, recover and listen to your own advice! If you give it a chance, you'll grow to love it (particularly the naps!).
Just for the record I really like naps.
I do both! I always have a ice bath and then I have a nap. :)
I wish I had time for a nap. It's just not going to happen around here. But I will suffer through an ice bath.
Reality is, when you have a busy family, sometimes the 3 hrs or more for the workout is all that can squeeze into the schedule. There have been so many times that I have woken up in the wee hrs, completed my long workout, flown into the house, stripped clothes off in basement laundry, bee-lined for the shower, hollered reminders to the gang to 'pack water bottles, don't forget your neck warmer' blah blah, while I ran around grabbing my own quick meal and then out the door we go to our family event for the day. That is my life so so so often. Making time for the proper recovery isn't always about guilt of more time taken it's purely about time available.
We're not Pro triathletes with time in our schedule to nap and have a massage so we just have to do the best we can.
I seem to equate "recovery" with "laziness" though must admit I've been known to come home from work on days I've done my training in the morning, climbed right into bed with a book, and stayed there until the next day. I always feel guilty about it though!
haha im supposed to actively try to recover? not just flop on the couch???? JK lol ps im buying recovery socks :)
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