Coffee, Snow, and Reflection

It is snowing here in Leadville today. The perfect weather for sitting in a coffee shop, reflecting on things. I find the caffeine does a pretty lousy job of helping me think properly (in some ways the exact opposite that a good run does), but I will give it a shot anyway. Let's see if I can keep this from getting too scattered.

On Recovery
It has been about a week and a half since the Collegiate Peaks Trail Run and I am still recuperating from the race. On the up side, I am seeing the end of the tunnel in my recovery period. My run yesterday hurt in a "training" way (muscular) and not a "need for recovery" way (tendons, ligaments, joint pain). It has taken a slightly longer period of recovery but after all, I did run the CP50 pretty fast (relative to my prior experiences). This contrasts from my recovery following the Grand Canyon R2R2R which was a three day affair and only involved muscular pain. Regardless of how long I am taking to recover from Collegiate Peaks I am still feeling much, MUCH better than my recovery from Run Rabbit Run in 2009.

In thinking about this I started looking at the numbers that I have recorded on recovery time and training time following each race. I created a nice table with each 50 mile event, the training information and the recovery information. I had just about finished the table when I ran into a problem: my idea of recovery has changed with each ultramarathon I have run including the Leadville Trail 100. I have come to view recovery in two parts

1. Complete Rest
2. Active Recovery

After each ultra I take a period of complete rest where I minimize the amount of activity that I engage in to walking short distances to stretch the muscles out. During this period the muscles, tendons, or ligaments are damaged too much to be active again and it generally has taken between 3 days (2011 R2R2R) and several weeks (2009 RRR and 2010 LT100) to get back to a point where I could run and bicycle again to actively recover. During active recovery I have taken from one to many weeks to completely recover to a point where I was increasing the mileage again. It has been this period of active recovery that has varied the most and it has been due mostly to my ideas of what a recovered body feels like.

In the past I have wanted my body to feel completely at ease with running before increasing my mileage again. I am starting to think that I can push the recovery a little faster in the future. The reason I think this is that even in my heaviest training periods I experience pain when I run. It is only during my taper period and during the complete rest period of recovery that I do not feel much pain. I propose (to myself, I guess) in the future that I push through the pain to end my active recovery phase sooner. We'll see how this goes.

Conclusion: Push active recovery phase to start training once again.

On Training this Summer
I have created a spreadsheet to record my training progress as well as aid in planning my training for the summer. I have about 4 months to train for the Bear which, I think, will be enough based on my maintenance miles I kept all winter long, and my training for the Grand Canyon and Collegiate Peaks this spring.

I am expecting to have the time to do speedwork and some barefoot running this summer to strengthen supporting muscles. It should be a fun summer once the snow melts higher in the mountains around here. I am looking forward to running hills until I am on the verge of throwing up once again. I had great success with pushing my cardiovascular system last year on the Power Lines, Mosquito Pass, and Hope Pass. I look forward to doing so once again as well as playing in some new areas: the San Juans, Holy Cross, and maybe the Sangres (I would like to have more positive memories of the Sangres).

But for now I am watching the snow out the window of Provin' Grounds and the weather forecast calling for the same thing all week. I guess I just have to take a "one step at a time" attitude for the time being. All things pass, the good and the bad.