recover

For those of you, who on Sunday came through an Ironman, congratulations! You made your goal! Just to get on the startline, without having any injuries, is worth of saying congratulations! Now it is time for recover, and the better you do it the quicker you are ready for training again

To get well on with recovery, it is important to take care of your body. A full Ironman is a hard pressure all the way through for your body, and now it needs a good rest. The first week your body is still working a lot and trying to repair all the damages after the race. This is why you might:
– have difficulties in sleeping; if so, try to take a nap in the afternoon, relax, warm baths, maybe a “fall-in-sleep” pill
– get “heat waves” feel warm in your body: if so, keep your bedroom cool, light blanket, cool showers
– have a hunger and thirst feeling; if so, eat and drink, but remember not to intake crab; unhealthy food. The richer your food is in vitamins, minerals and antioxidants, the faster the recover goes. Remeber the proteins, 1 egg a day is good, and lots of fruits to balance out the antioxidant attack on your body.
– get a massage, and then the week after, one more good massage. Works wonders.
– small damages ? try to cool it. It normally works until 48-72 hours after, but still…if you come home after a small bikeride, and the pain is there…put ice on  (that is …unless it is on the part that had contact to the saddel during the race…..then just stay off the saddel !)

In your training, watch out:
– in the first week just light walks, swims, aquajogging, maybe cruising a bit on a bike. No running the first 10 days, that is the way to reduce risk of injurys
– second week, keep yourself still “low moving”, no pressure in anything you do, and train only if it brings you fun!
REMEMBER….this is the risky week. You have great shape ! and you will start to feel fresh ….and so you might think that it is a good
idea, to use all that training and good shape for something, like a small bikerace, a run, drop the freinds on the sundayride or run ect.
DONT, your tissue and muscles are not recovered yet !(unless your are an elite and expert in recover, and dont need to read this)
– 3. and 4. week you might start feeling, that you really really  like you want to train hard again, but be patient, stay cool for 4 weeks, and then, feel your body what it says. If you can ride a tempo ride of 30 minutes without feeling exhausted, you are well recovered, else take one more week off from heavy and hard training.

And enjoy your “low season”, now you have time for the things you did not when you were training a lot . And remember… make plans for your next season And see you on the roads…

ps. here some more shoots from my training camp in Boulder: