Heavy on the arms for my first day back, 1/2 marathon race recap

Need to get caught up since I haven't posted since last Wednesday.

Thursday - rest day (really should've done something, but I was scared about the race!)
Friday - rest day
Saturday - Critz Tybee Run 1/2 Marathon in the morning, then treated myself to some Chik-Fil-A, went to see Sherlock Holmes and had a lovely fancy dinner with my husband. :)

I'm happy to report that I not only survived the 1/2 marathon, but also met my goal of finishing under 2 hours and 30 minutes.

My official chip time was 2:20:00. So fun that it was a totally even number. :)

That works out to an average per mile pace of 10:41, but I definitely wasn't going that slow the entire race. I wasn't wearing a watch, but my guess is that I did most of the miles between 9 and 10 minutes per mile, and then the last 3 were suuuuuper slow, like 11 or even 12 minutes per mile.

A friend told me beforehand that the first 10 miles would be no problem, but the last three would be brutal. She was totally right. I think during mile 11 I realized I was slowing down, and I tried to kick it up a notch, and just didn't have anything left in my legs. By the start of mile 13 I was barely hanging on. It was only by sheer force of will that I kept running the last mile. When I finally stopped, my legs were numb and I almost fell over. Holy shit. What an experience.

The pain in my legs after the day of the race was pretty bad. My shins were aching just below and outside my knees - I guess that maybe that was tendonitis? My hamstrings were freaking *shot*, and calves were sore too. Walking was not pretty, and I had to hang onto my husband to go up and down the stairs.

Oddly, my quads didn't hurt one bit. WTF??

The strangest thing about the post-race experience was how my arms weren't tired at all. It was just freaky odd. There have only been a few times that I've experienced leg muscle fatigue approaching what I felt after finishing the 1/2 -- that was after each of my 2 sprint triathlons and after a few select CrossFit WODs (Eva comes to mind). Those two situations led to more of a full-body fatigue, instead of such a completely leg-isolated fatigue. It felt a lot more "normal" to be tired all over, instead of just having busted legs...

Sunday - Turned tourist and climbed the Tybee Island lighthouse and walked around Fort Pulaski. Treated myself to one last stromboli from our fav pizza joint before the Paleo Challenge starts.

I was very happy that only the hamstring pain was still there on Sunday, and not the knee/shin ache -- I don't like even a hint of knee issues. A bit of soreness developed in my inner thigh -- I was expecting that, since shorter runs usually leave me sore there. I was worried about making it up the steps of the lighthouse (there are 178, I think), but I made it just fine. :)

Monday

Today is the second day after the race, and I'm still hurting pretty bad in my hamstrings. Hence why I chose to makeup an arm-centric WOD my home box did last Friday.

21-15-9 for time of:
Handstand push ups
Ring dips
Knees to elbows GHD situps
Push ups
Pull ups

Results:  48:10

I'm still healing up a palm rip from last Tuesday, and I was feeling wussy to boot, so I substituted GHD situps for the K2Es. Used the skinny band on my ring dips. Used the harness for HSPUs - green + blue with a loop.

Holy cow was this WOD a grind fest...OMG... I could barely get my pullups. They took forever. The best I did was 3 in a row to start off the first set. After that I only strung two together a couple times, most were singles. Even the pushups were a struggle.

Some of the time was taken up by me putting gauze and tape over my palm just before doing my pushups on the first round, but my time still really sucked.

HSPUs felt very strong, though. My shoulders are getting so much stronger in different ranges of motion, I love it. I need to take the loop out of the blue band and/or downgrade to white soon. Need to keep working on static handstands as well.

I'm glad I did something today, but boy was it a mental struggle. I've been on the couch the rest of the day. Oh the joys of quasi-unemployment. :)