three things thursday

1. I don't have any taper crazies just yet because I still feel incredibly exhausted.  The fatigue has been pretty slow to drip away this time around.  However, the post-peak-training inflammation I was carrying around in the form of water weight has disappeared and I'm back to normal there.  I'm still carrying some deep muscle soreness but I can feel it getting better all the time.  And while I feel slow and sluggish, the clock is telling me that I'm close to normal, which is about the most bizarre thing yet.  It's the worst in the pool, I feel as if I'm swimming through mud and can't get a deep enough breath, but then when I pop up and eyeball the clock, it's right around normal for me.  I also have been sleeping really well, hard and all night long without waking up to pee, so I know that there is still some pretty deep healing going on.  I don't drink coffee (I know), but the past week or so I've felt like I could use some - I'm really groggy in the morning, like I just can't shake off the sleep.  It was pretty interesting to watch how my body reacted to all the heavy training, but I'm finding it even more interesting to watch how it is handling recovery.  All I can really do is just keep rocking every recovery trick I know, which includes tons of greens (I believe spinach is magic), good proteins and whole grains and ice cream before bed and keeping my stress levels low by maximizing puppy snuggling time.


2. Speaking of puppy, this one ended up in the vet's office yesterday because we were pretty sure he had broken/sprained/strained/dislocated his shoulder.

The vet agreed that something was going on with his elbow/shoulder area, but since they would have to sedate him to take x-rays we decided against it for right now.  We left with a painkiller/anti-inflammatory (Graham hasn't been eating his spinach) and strict instructions to keep him quiet for a week or two.  He doesn't understand any of this, he just knows that he isn't allowed to go outside with his bitches and play tennis ball right now, and it breaks his little heart.

3. I haven't talked about shoes in a while, but I've been safely running in these for over a month now.

I've been a good girl this time around, I started with 5 minutes and have been working my way up from there while being careful to trade off and stretch properly, but I just love how happy they make my feet.  They might be the final piece to this puzzle:

The answer to the puzzle being, "crap I'll be wearing on race day" for five hundred points.  And I don't want to hear single cranky little word about it.


Happy Thursday!  Roll call for tapering cranky pants folks!