My Least Favorite Part about Long Races

If there's one thing that people hate the most during a training cycle, it's the taper.  Personally, I dislike the recovery period the most.  For a 50K, it usually takes me three weeks to recenter my head and the power return to my legs.  Given that, I'm not surprised that the running two weeks since the Marquette race has been less than exciting. 

The first week, my knees were angry at me and I did minimal exercise of any kind.  Mostly I rocked myself in the big yellow island hammock and read my book. 

I soaked up the sun.  I did pretty much nothing.  And it was awesome.  I found that I didn't miss running at all.  I did manage a few good swims in the lake and am considering joining the triathlon club on their lagoon swims as well.  The week was pretty much upper body boot camp.

Beginning Sunday and upon our return home, I began running again.  Tentatively at first, I spent most of the time monitoring the every movement of my knees.  Even wearing pants on the airplane was very painful to my healing skin.  My legs moved fine, but by the end of my twelve mile long run on Wednesday, I was left with unusually sore knees. 

I rubbed the sore and tight spots in my knees and felt no pain, so I think I'm still okay structurally, but the muscles everywhere else were really tight.  I decided to go in for a massage and see if Savannah could work her magic on those spots.  It ended up being one of those "I can't believe I'm paying you to hurt me so much" kind of days.  I walked out of the appointment with huge pillow creases across my face and relaxation in those trouble spots through my legs.

The lackluster running motivation is often a sign that I'm not recovered from the race yet.  Next week will be another lower mileage week before I push above what I keep as a base (40mpw).  Each day I feel stronger and more motivated, so I expect I will be fine when the time comes.  Then we're gearing up for December 8th's California International Marathon.

What's your least favorite part about training cycles?  Do you get massages to help you recover?