Reflecting during recovery week

The week after a big race is always an important one.  You need a particular type of rest but this normally involves exercise.  Not for me this time as my knees presented a major problem.  I had deep gouges in both knees, bruising, swelling and they were constantly leaking puss.  Putting bandages on them meant pealing them off slowly but this usually removed the scab which wasn’t nice.  I struggled to wear trousers so attended several client meetings in shorts as I tried to “air my knees”.  The worst part was sleeping as any pressure from the covers on my knees kept me awake so I didn’t get the benefit of a good nights sleep.  I was having a bath every night with Epsom salts and then my coach came up with a miracle cream which started to speed up the healing.  All this because I lost concentration for seconds in an 11 hour race!  Worth remembering for the Tahoe 200 over 4 days with sleep deprivation and greater elevation.
After the first day my quads began to feel normal which was encouraging and shows the training I had done had worked.  I lost 6 lbs on race day so have been eating like a horse all week - constantly hungry.  A massage on Thursday was well timed and apparently my legs were in good shape, if you ignored my knees.
I also had a meeting with my coach to analyse the race.  She was always of the view I should have been under 11 hours and by a good margin.  But my holiday before the race put paid to that happening.  Whether or not that played in my mind during the race I’m not certain but it didn’t help.  What we both agreed was that this was just “a bad day at the office” however there were positives to be taken from it.  You need to comfortable being uncomfortable if you are going to take part in long distance endurance events - I was certainly uncomfortable, right from the start of the race.  Not only that I kept going and pushed through the discomfort and pain.  Something I am going to be doing over 4 days in September.  Once the first goal wasn’t possible I refocused on the 2nd goal and achieved it - it would have been easier on the day to have given up and walk in.  However had I done that I would have regretted it forever.  Pain is temporary, failure is forever.
I was under orders of no running this week to allow the swelling to go down.  Yesterday I went for a 2 mile walk and today a 5 mile walk.  My legs feel great.  I’ll still need to bandage my knees at night or if I’m wearing trousers but they should be fixed in a few days time.  I’m praying that I’ll start back running tomorrow as I don’t like sitting around but I’m sure the last week has helped my recovery and my focus is now completely on September 13th for the Tahoe 200.  130 days to go to transform my body to be Tahoe Tough!