So, as I had posted yesterday, my son had generously shared his fever/sore throat/achy muscles/etc.. So I had passed on my Tuesday workout, and stayed home on weds. As I was curled up on the couch, in my comfy clothes and hot tea I began to read through my blog-list that I enjoy reading. Now, rather than reading some of them everyday, I wait and catch up on several days at once. One of the people I do this with – is the “Running Thriver.” Brief background is that she went through some rough spots in life (understatement here), and has used fitness/working out/etc to really turn her life around. In the time I have been reading her blog, she has begun doing a “boot camp” workout at a gym, and for the last month, has been doing Insanity. Some days she does both. In other words, she is a seriously intense person – and it shows. Well, I was reading her blog, and there was a link to an earlier post at the bottom. It had a funny title – “Why Boot camp and Decongestants Don’t Mix….”- so I clicked on it.
“Damn” I thought after reading it. This woman is out there doing an Insanity workout in
- No couch.. but you get the idea.
“Well… Maybe I can sweat this thing out then..” I thought.
So, I headed back into my custom gym (sounds much better than “kid’s playroom” doesn’t it?), with that thought in mind. I decided to do a bit of a longer run as a warm up – and did 2.25 miles in 20 minutes. I started at 6 mph, then every 5 minutes went up .5 mph. I wasn’t feeling oto badly after that, so I followed it up with a nice Back and Bicep workout on my imitation-total-gym (I need a better name for it..) I even remembered to do situps at the end!!! Then I hopped back on the treadmill, 5 minutes at 6mph, 5 minutes at 6.5 mph, 10 minutes at 7 mph (another 2.25 miles), then a half a mile of walking.
The nice thing, is my muscles that were sore from Monday’s chest & tri work out – weren’t near as sore as they were. AFter my cooling down, stretching and showering – I continued reading blogs. I went over to read today’s entry from “notajogger” – a runner (not a jogger) over in England who’s post was titled “Do Recovery Runs Really Work? While the entire blog-posting is interesting (especially since I had wondered the exact same thing), the part that stood out to me was a link on “Muscle Fever.” As I had never heard of this before – I decided to follow the link and read about it. It turns out that “Muscle Fever” is also known as “Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness.” Or as I learned when I first started lifting weights back in 1998 – Oh my god are my muscles going to hurt alot more the next day (and especially the one after that) then it does today… What I found really interesting in the wiki was how they questioned the value of exercising to relieve “Muscle Fever” for resistance training. When I was just starting lifting, I was told to workout the next day also – or it would get worse.. I always found that to be true. I found it to be true again yesterday, as lifting did indeed help with my “muscle fever.”
I run, because I am a runner. Having realized that I have always "been a runner" - even when I went years with out running, I am learning how it has integrated itself in all aspects of my life. When I started running in highschool, my perspective on life changed. Funny that I didn't realize how much it had affected it until just recently.
Once and Future Runner 
LOL I never thought of myself as intense! I guess it’s true when it comes to working out- after all, it’s my battleground against doubt and insecurities. 😉 Thanks so much for the mention. I’m glad you were able to kick some butt!!!! I hope you’re back at 100% soon!
You are intense! AND an inspiration! Not only that, I seemed to sweat out the bug that was bothering me – so you even helped me on that one! Thanks!
Exercising with DOM’s does work by shifting lactic acid build up in the muscles, so recovery runs do help as long as they are slow and pretty effortless. Doing another strength workout though may not be wise. When lifting weights you will be making micro tears in the muscles by tearing tiny muscle fibres. If you don’t let them repair properly, you will gain scar tissue and it could lead to an injury. Back to back weights sessions are not advisable!