Aches and soreness

I skipped the Adidas Running Community training yesterday evening as my quads and hamstrings were sore from Wednesday’s workout. To top it off, the morning’s back-targeted training added to my woes. In fact, both my legs and entire back muscles are still in “pain”.
I didn’t think this week’s training was that intense nor did I take any extended break from trainings – but all the muscles I worked on – chest, back and legs – were or are still sore. Perhaps I should really think about getting the Phiten that marathoners use to alleviate muscle aches and soreness and speed up the recovery process. It should also help after my runs. I was in such a heightened state for most of yesterday afternoon and had to schedule a massage session after work.

I had an hour-long interlude at Zen Soul Hartamas – one of Viva Vertical’s partners and Lola did mention her experience was good. With that I received a 10% discount of the usual RM75; was sorely tempted to take their 2-hour Balinese package of scrub, bath, massage and lotion but I had to make it home in good time to finish dinner at a decent hour. The therapist was good and I told her to add on the pressure. It was definitely an intense session – the pain definitely came on when the pressure was applied to the calves, quads, hamstrings, back and shoulder. It does seem like all the muscles, doesn’t it?

The massage did relieve some of the soreness but not much as I’m still in “pain” this morning. What it really helped was the sleep! I dozed off once I crawled under the sheets and woke up refreshed and even before the alarm came on. I’m thinking of scheduling another session this evening to work out all the knots and “further distribute” the lactic acid in the muscles before the Great Eastern Women’s 10K on Sunday – now if only I could afford it.

Having skipped yesterday’s run, I made up for it with 2 loops around Lake Gardens this morning. Tag on the 5-minute warm up around the car park, the mileage clocked was 5.27 km – I tried to discard the warm up data but the silly Garmin refused to adhere to instructions! All in, the timing came in at 29 minutes and the average speed was 5:33 min/km. I was flabbergasted though I knew I was running a bit too fast and did tell myself to slow down in the second loop. The splits from km 2 through km 5+ were in the region of 5:10 – 5:20 min/km.

Oh dang! I just clicked on Ronnie’s website and discovered that they did speedwork yesterday evening! I really need interval trainings more than anything if I want a chance of dipping below 55 minutes. On second thoughts, would speedworks which are usually more intense, focused, and energy draining deplete the remaining “life force” out of me? Perhaps I should pencil in interval trainings on Saturday mornings – probably do the 200-300 m uphill slope.