I’m looking forward to getting back to two of my favourite training grounds from my highschool and gradschool days in Kingston, but more importantly to support two great running events going on in the city.

On Saturday I’ll be at Lemoine Point Conservation area helping out at the Tracey Kirkland Family Fun Walk/Run 5km race. Tracey is a young marathon runner from Kingston who was on her way to run a marathon in San Francisco when she collapsed and was rushed to hospital. It was discovered she has AVM. She remains in ICU in Toronto. The event aims to raise funds to off set the costs of Tracey’s medical care. I’ve donated a signed piece of Olympic Team gear to the silent auction. More information on the event and how you can register or donate is available here and here. If you are in Kingston with nothing to do on Saturday morning please come and support this event.

Sunday, the Athletics Ontario Cross Country Championships will be taking place up on the cross country course at Fort Henry Hill, hosted by Kingston running club Physi-Kult (to which I am a member). I won’t be racing, but I’ll be there cheering on all the runners, handing out some awards, signing some autographs, and just hanging out. The races start at 10:00am with the bantam girls 2km and the final race of the day, the Senior Men’s 10km starts at 2:35pm. There is more information available here. Current weather forecast for Sunday looks fantastic. So, come check out the action if you’re in the area. We’ll be raffling off some signed Olympic Team gear, with proceeds going to the Physi-Kult junior athletes travel fund.

I have fond (and some not so fond) memories of both training and racing at both Lemoine Pt and Fort Henry hill while growing up in Kingston. My first memories of Lemoine Pt are from when I went to summer camp there as a 6-10 yr old. I can remember the walk from Rotary Pk to the beach at Lemoine and thinking the place was so so huge. Now when I go back and go for a run around the ~3mile perimeter trail I find myself wishing it were much larger. I also miss the chip truck that used to be parked half-way along our walking route in my summer camp days. What happened to that thing? I mean who wouldn’t want to stop for some fries or poutine part way through a run or walk!?!

One of my funnier memories of running at Fort Henry actually comes from a road race I did there while at home over Christmas Holidays during University. Temps were right around the freezing mark and about half way through this 8km race it started to rain ever so lightly. I was duking it out for top spot with old man Boyd. And all of a sudden the road turns into a skating rink. It was ridiculously dangerous, especially considering my racing flats had zero grip. I can remember sliding across the pavement right through an intersection. We probably should’ve just stop racing, but Steve and I continued to battle it out until we got the steep downhill at Fort Henry, then I was actually afraid I was gonna fall on my face, so packed it in and let Steve win. His version of this story probably has him just beating me out right, but I swear I eased up and let him win

Anyways, I hope to see some of you readers out at these events this coming weekend.

Me back in grade 5 or 6(?) racing at Lemoine Pt. Notice the high socks: I was way ahead of the times in terms of this whole compression sock thing!

Yesterday I threw down 25.5miles to cap of a solid 4 weeks of training here in St. Moritz. I’d be lying if I told you everything has gone smoothly. This block of training was a real grind for me to get through. Between the extremely random weather, the altitude, and pushing the envelope with more intensity than in the past I walked away from some workouts exhausted mentally and banged up physically. But, with some good treatment I was able to get my body feeling right and keep the hand on the fire so to speak. And now I get to come up for some air, both figuratively and literally. I’ll head down to Zurich later this week and get in a workout there and then on to London for a few days.

I will be taking part in the Opening Ceremonies. Most athletes skip this ceremony as it can be physically taxing and therefore might take away from performance. My coach and I felt this would be a good thing to do to help get over the awe of the Olympics and to get in a bit of an Olympic experience. Since I’m competing on the last day of the Games I will not get the chance to attend any other events. But at the same time with it being 16 days before my race I’m not worried about the physical toll that walking in the opening ceremony will have on my legs. I was pleased to see several veteran track athletes including Bernard Lagat and Nick Willis will be taking part in the Opening Ceremonies. Sort of reaffirmed that it’s not a bad idea. And of course with Simon Whitfield as Canada’s flag bearer I expect this will be a very exciting experience for me.

I still remember watching Simon win gold in 2000. At the time I was a 17 year old dreaming of OFSAA track medals and an NCAA scholarship. Seeing Simon win gold made me think about the bigger picture. Since that day I’ve always been a huge Whitfield fan, and over the years have even found myself more and more interested in triathlon. Heck if I was 5 years younger in 2000 I probably Would’ve demanded my parents put me swimming lessons and buy me a road bike. That transformation was clearly visible amongsts kids that bit younger than me in the Kingston area. The Alex Hintons and Tristan Woodfines of the world went into triathlon as kids and are now making noise in that sport, no doubt inspired by Simon’s exploits. Me, I still haven’t mastered the doggy paddle.

Fellow Canadian track athletes Hilary Stellingwerf (1500m) and Inaki Gomez (20km race walk) have also been here training. Last week we took the gondola up to Piz Nair (one of the peaks here behind my apartment up in the Albula range). I posted a few pictures from that to tumblr. The most excitement besides that was a few games of pool with members of the Canandian rowing team who were training just down the road in Silvaplana. It was cool to meet these guys and I look forward to cheering them on (from afar) as they loom to scoop up some hardware in London.

I wish I had more news to report from here in Switzerland, but my days have been pretty uneventful besides training. I did get some nice press in the Toronto Star on Sunday. But for the most part all has been quite and I’m focused on the 12th of August.

Once again, not the best effort in updating the blog. I did make the effort and put together a nice write up while on an airplane last week, but then I randomly deleted it somehow and was too lazy to try to resurrect that.

I’ve been traveling a lot recently; in the past two weeks I’ve gone from Flagstaff, AZ to Kingston/Ottawa, ON to Hamburg, Germany, and now finally St. Moritz, Switzerland.

I’ll take you back a little bit to the rest of my time in Flagstaff. Things started to really come together my last 2.5 weeks of pounding out the training on the red dirt roads. It was great having Rob Watson up there joining me pretty much every step of the way. We hit some great sessions out on Lake Mary Rd and at Coconino High School.

From Flagstaff I was able to make a brief trip back to eastern Ontario where I was able to visit some friends and family and attend a few events in Kingston. I had the opportunity to visit some local elementary schools that are involved in the Reading & Running program. I was challenged to a race around the school yard by some eager young runners and got left in their dust! The local running community also organized a nice send off event in the Market Square and a little fundraiser at Kingston Brew Pub. I also managed to squeeze in a track workout at the new track at the Invista Centre. It is a great new facility and I am really pleased to see Kingston finally get a proper Track & Field facility. It’s a huge step up from either making random calcualtions to account for the odd-distanced track at Tindall field or to fence-hoping and pothole-dodging at the woeful Richardson Stadium. Hopefully the new facility creates more and more opportunities for kids in the Kingston area to get involved in the sport.

From Ottawa I then hopped over the Atlantic to Hamburg, Germany for the Hella Hamburg 1/2 marathon. I placed 5th in a time of 1:03:34. Not my best time ever, and not my best effort ever either, but I’m okay with the result. Hamburg seems like a nice city and the people were very friendly. I hpe to make it back there again sometime when it is not pouring rain the entire time.

I’m now writing this from St. Moritz, Switzerland. It is a small resort town in the Swiss Alps that is situated at somewhere between 1790-1860m above sea level (I’ve read many differing accounts of the altitude here). I will be based here up until the Olympic Games. So, far things are going well here. Adapting to a new setting is always difficult the first few days as you try to get into a routine and find your way around. St. Moritz and the surrounding area is a beautiful part of the world and the trails and tracks for running are fantastic. I’m confident that this is the best possible setup to have me prepared to do my best in London on August 12th. I owe a huge thanks to a lot of people for this training camp coming to fruition, including the running community in Kingston and Vancouver for their fundraising efforts, the CanFund for their support of me and other Olympic athletes, and AC for their support and their belief in my training plan ahead of London.

I want to be able to share some photos with visitors to the site, but as Rob Watson can attest to uploading photos to a blog from my iPad can be very frustrating. So, as an alternative I’ve set up a Tumblr site to share some photos with everyone. This will allow me to upload photos directly from my phone. Please visit this link:  dwykes.tumblr.com as I’ll try to post photos there occasionally.

I told myself I was going to be better at updating on my progress towards London. I’m a bit behind the 8-ball with that. You can catch up what I was up to the few weeks following Rotterdam by reading this report I wrote for the Mizuno Run Club newsletter.

Now to get you up to speed on what’s been happening the past few weeks:

I returned to Flagstaff, AZ to get the ball rolling again on training. I was undecided about where I should train leading into London. The altitude training I did here prior to my spring marathon(s) seemed to really help. So, I decided to come back here again.

The first few days were a bit of a struggle. Trying to get back into shape and adjust to the altitude all at the same time has been tough. But, I’m trying to be patient and take things day by day. Two weeks in now and I feel like I’m starting to come around nicely. Just in time for Rob “The Destroyer” Watson to arrive for a 3 week stint.

Last week I had a nice morning of training and coffee drinking with Craig Taylor and his group of triathletes from RTC-Guelph. They were in Sedona, AZ for an altitude training camp for the past three weeks. I took them to Buffalo Park for a run and Macy’s for coffee. Two of my favourite places in Flag. Best of luck to the entire crew this summer.

From L to R: Alex Hinton, Tristan Woodfine, Me, Jason Wilson at Buffalo Pk

The RTC-Guelph crew and Me outside Macy's Coffee Shop

On Thursday my selection to the Canadian Olympic team, along with Eric Gillis and Reid Coolsaet, was made official at a press conference in Guelph, ON.

It was an exciting day – signing autographs for little kids, putting on the Canadian Olympic team jacket, doing interviews. Exciting & exhausting.

Here are links to a few of the articles written about the day:

The Record article by Greg Mercer, Hamilton Spectator article by Steve Milton (yes Reid finally got some press in his hometown paper), Guelph Mercury article by Rob Massey.

And here are a few that recap my race in Rotterdam:

Globe & Mail Article by Lori Ewing & Kingston Whig-Standard article by Mike Koreen.

Currently working on my plan for preparations towards London with coach Lee. Training at high altitude worked well for me before Rotterdam (I was in Flagstaff, AZ training from Dec-Feb in preparation for Lake Biwa marathon and then again for 4 weeks before Rotterdam marathon) so the plan is to head back. I hope to split my time between Flagstaff, AZ and St. Moritz, Switzerland.

The Kingston running community (spearheaded by Al Cantlay at Runner’s Choice Kingston and the Kingston Road Runners Association) have started ‘Dylan’s London Fund’ to help support my training ahead of the Olympics. Many thanks to everyone involved; as an amateur athlete every little bit helps me towards achieving my goals in London. More information can be found here.

Lastly, if you weren’t excited about the state of Canadian distance running already – with 3 of our fastest male marathoners in history lining up in London on August 12th – you should be excited now, as young guns Cam Levins and Mo Ahmed obtained the Olympic A standard in the 10,000m at the Payton Jordan Invite last night in Palo Alto, CA. This is extremely exciting for the future of Canadian distance running. The Canadian 10,000m record holder Simon Bairu was also in this race. Unfortunately he missed the Olympic standard. But, I’m hopeful he’ll get another shot at the time and that Canada will have 3 men in the 10,000m in London. You can watch the video here: Payton Jordan 10,000m

It’s been sometime since I’ve managed an update on here. After dropping out of Lake Biwa I was pretty down and out. Leading up to Lake Biwa training had gone so well — including 12 weeks at altitude in Flagstaff, AZ — that I had very high expectations for myself. Not meeting those expectations was brutal and I had a lot of trouble looking beyond my failure. Perhaps one sign that I hadn’t totally packed in it was that I continued to run each day following Japan, though I didn’t really know why. A force of habit maybe? Eventually with some tough love from current and former coach and some less tough love from family I got my head screwed back on. I returned to Flagstaff, AZ to train and intended to try racing another marathon before the Olympic qualifying window closed on April 22.
Next struggle was getting into a race. Some people reading may think that’s weird, that it should be a no brainer for an athlete at my level to get into a marathon. But, a lot of marathons close entry to there elite fields months before the race. In the end my agent was able to secure me a spot on the start line in Rotterdam.
Training in the weeks in between Japan and Rotterdam was okay. I trusted Rich’s experience and knowledge and followed the program as closely as I could. I had a few workouts where I didn’t feel super human (which I did almost every time out prior to Japan). Usually having a few ho-hum workouts would really kill my motivation and confidence. But I knew I just had to get myself on the line in Rotterdam with a healthy body and mind and give it a shot. A shout out to the Speed River crew for there company on runs and social events during those weeks in Flagstaff. It made for some enjoyable training and helped keep me relaxed.
I flew over to Holland a week prior to the race to try to adapt to the time change and the effects of coming down to sea level (or slightly below) from 7,000ft above sea level. I was fortunate to stay with some very great people near Eindhoven for a few days. Once in Rotterdam it was nice to be in the company of several other canadians – Rob Watson, Lanni Marchant, and Krista Duchene. Like training and hanging out with the Speed River crew in Flagstaff having these guys around took my mind off the race.
So, on to the race; I knew in advance that there was going to be a group setup around the Dutch athlete Koen Raymaekers who needed to run 2:10:00 for the Dutch Olympic team (and Canadians think our standards are tough!!!). He was to have 3 pacers with the intention of going through halfway in 65:00, and I knew of at least 2 other guys that were going to run in that group. So, my game plan was simple — just run in the group for as long as possible, staying as relaxed as possible, and then hope it’s a good day over the last 12k.
On the start line we were packed in like sardines. I literally had no room to move and was not comfortable with the situation at all. When the canon went off I probably got no more than 2 steps before I hit the deck and hit it hard. For a split second I thought maybe they’d recall everyone to the start, but then I realized this wasn’t a high school track meet, this was a race with 7,000 people in it so knew that wasn’t going to happen. I got up in a fit of rage and stormed past people. I went flying past Rob cursing and a few seconds later realized I should probably chill out. I tried to settle into the pack  at that point which was the second ‘group’ in the race — the first group was out of sight pretty early as they were chasing the world record. But there were a ton of guys in the pack and I couldn’t get comfortable. I’ve never run behind myself (obviously) but people either don’t respect the fact that I’m 6’2″ and have long legs or I do something really odd with my stride because I constantly get clipped. This was happening repeatedly in the first 5-10km of the race. Sometime after 10km things started to spread out a bit and I was able to settle into the back of the group.
I didn’t look at my watch at all and wasn’t aware of our splits during the first half of the race. I was running the way I wanted but I didn’t feel great. My quads were getting heavy and sore as early as 15k. I even thought about letting the pack go at several times between 15-20k. But knowing the worst of the forecasted winds were going it hit us between 20-30k I really didn’t want to be out on my own. I just kept the head down and tried to run in the very back of the group where I thought I could get the most relief from the wind.
One of the most difficult parts of the race for me was the fluids stations every 5km.  The Dutch athlete Koen was having his bottle handed to him by a volunteer whereas everyone else was trying to grab their bottles off the table. It was often hard to spot my bottle (even harder for Le Rob) as they were quite close together on the tables. So we had to slow down a bit more than Koen. And his pacers didn’t slow down at all in these areas. I also felt like I was drinking a lot longer than some of the other guys or maybe I jut can’t drink and run at a fast enough pace. Anyways, I lost 10-20metres on the pack at every water station and had to put a real concentrated effort to get back onto the group. that sucked.
I saw the 20k split and wasn’t sure exactly what it equated to, but i knew it was fast. I was actually relieved at that point as it somewhat justified my legs feeling tired as early as they did. We split 64:40 for the half marathon.
From halfway to 30km was a bit of blur for me. A few guys were yoyoing off the back of the group and I had to change position once in a while. I actually started to feel a bit better during this time. As my splits would prove we slowed down quite a bit during this stage. Partly this was because of the wind were running into, and partly because the few hills (one bridge and one incline shouldn’t really be calling a ‘hill’) come between 20-25km and maybe partly because everyone needed a little breather after the fast early pace.

Whereas between 12-20k I felt the kilometers were passing really slowly and I found myself looking up the road for the next km marker — between 25-30km I felt like things were going by more quickly. This section was also through downtown and the spectators were going crazy so that was probably a good distraction.

I knew shit was gonna hit the fan soon after 30km. At that point the wind was going to be either a side or tail wind and I expected some guys might start rolling. 30km is also the point, roughly 90min into the race, when things can start getting pretty rough if your having a bad day. True to form when one of Koen’s two remaining pacers stopped at 30km the other accelerated. I looked at the split and realized this was also because we’d slowed down a bit and Koen was going to be cutting it close to run 2:10:00.
One of Rich’s few instructions before the race was to try to relax between 30-35km so that I might be able to actually finish the last 5km of the race with some energy. I had this in my mind when I covered the faster pace at around 31km. I tried to fight the urge to kill myself to cover little gaps and surges, but it seemed a better option than being stuck on my own. It was becoming really hard to stick with Koen and even when I did get back up with him and his pacer I couldn’t relax again. A Polish athlete was running with us at this point too. And part of Rich’s instructions were to not be afraid to drift off the pace a little around 30km if there was someone to drift off with. Le Rob fell off just a bit too soon. But this Polish guy seemed like he was still strong but also not comfortable with Koen’s pace. I lost about 10m to the 2 of them around 32km, then the polish guy lost 10m on Koen. I caught the Polish guy and we worked together for a bit.
I was under 2:11:29 pace the entire race, but my 30 and 35km split were Nearly identically to what I hit in Toronto in October. So, you can imagine I might not actually be too excited at this point, knowing how badly things can fall apart over the last 7km. But by 35km I had dropped the polish guy and felt like I was running strong with a pretty fluid stride — nothing was cramping up — but I was having some bowel discomfort (not as badly as Japan, but obviously something I’m going to have to look at remedying before London).
I was paying Much more attention to my km splits at this point. I wanted to see 3:10s. I saw a few 3:10s from 35-37, but then a 3:16 from 37-38. I went from thinking ‘okay this is still on’ to ‘oh f@$! I’m going to miss it by like 10 seconds’. But I stayed focused and pushed as hard as I could thinking about how pissed I’d be if I didn’t give it everything I had. I saw the clock at 40km — 2:03:55 — and knew I was really on for it. I did the math 7:30 for the last 2.2km is what I needed to get under the standard. Sure I’ve run my last 2.2km slower than that in the past. But I was moving well at this point. I stopped looking at my watch and just hit it as hard as I could while still keeping my bowel discomfort at bay. With 500m to go you turn onto the Coolsingel (the main street in Rotterdam) and there are thousands of fans going crazy. It’s pretty freaking cool. I checked my watch with 400m to go and knew there was no way I wasn’t going to get under the standard. I sprinted hard the next 200m and then the last 200m, well let’s just say I enjoyed that bit — numerous fist pumps. I looked at the finish line clock as I crossed under it — 2:10:46. I thought ‘wow, I didn’t just get under the standard, I killed it!’
Congrats to Rob, Lanni, and Krista who all ran PB’s and truly impressed out there on the streets of Rotterdam on Sunday. Exciting futures in the sport for all of them.
So many people to thank I’m not sure its worth trying on here. I hope to be in touch with as many people as possible over the next little while. But obviously huge thanks to my family for the unwavering support. And to my coach Rich Lee and his family for everything they’ve done for me the past few years.

Here are my splits:

Just a quick update from Japan. All is well here. It’s a beautiful day and they are predicting a nice day for the race.

The race will be difficult for people in North America to follow but if you are interested visit www.japanrunningnews.blogspot.com for info on how to watch on-line.

The race starts at 10:30pm EST Saturday March 3.

Domo arigato to everyone for their messages of support and well wishes.

I thought I’d write a little about my post workout/long run recovery routine. This idea came to me as I was standing in the ice tub, wishing I wasn’t, and reviewing an article posted to twitter about how ice bath’s aren’t really useful for recovery! My first thought was, ‘well sorry the Cryosauna was in the shop today’. Second thought was, maybe some people out there would be interested in the measures I take to try to recover well after hard efforts.

This routine has come about a bit from the advice of other athletes, a bit from the advice of exercise physiologists, and a bit from my own trial and error. I try to keep up on the science of things somewhat by following people like Alex Hutchinson (@sweatscience) and Steve Magness (@SteveMagness) on twitter. On his blog, Alex summarizes and critiques scientific literature and puts it all in laymen’s terms so we don’t have to read the actual articles ourselves! As I am a proud Master of epidemiology I do have the ability to read, comprehend, and judge the science for myself (to a certain degree). Most of the time I disregard the studies, what with tiny sample sizes and “well trained athletes” I often find myself thinking that the results aren’t really applicable to me, but that’s pretty cynical. Once in a while I’ll read something and try to put it into practice. I thought I should preclude things by stating that because at some point all of the methods I use for recovery have be debunked in scientific studies. But, at same time there has also been evidence to support the different modalities. So, in the end I just go with what feels good.

Disclaimer: In my current situation I have ample amounts of time on my hands to go through what I consider a some what exhaustive routine for recovery. It’s probably not realistic for everyone out there. Also, what I detail below is pretty much a typical routine following a hard workout/long run. (It’s not like those Specialized Training Day YouTube videos I’ve seen with some of their top triathletes…I find it hard to believe that those are just ‘typical’ training days for Dons and Frodeno, the athletes must’ve selected the most extreme of training days to be documented. I like Whitfield’s ‘day’ as it actually seems realistic)

Okay, so I ran 24miles (eek, maybe it was 25miles…sorry coach) today. It was a solid run, definitely something that is going to beat up the body and require a good amount of recovery. The first thing I do after a long run or workout is get some Vega Recovery Accelerator into me. I try to do this as soon after finishing the run as possible. I also try to get in some light stretching and leg swings straight away. Most of the time for workouts/long runs I drive to some where to start my run, so this might be done at the side of the road or in a parking lot, before driving home.

The Vega products I typically consume after a workout

On the drive home, if my stomach is feeling okay (sometimes it’s not) I have a Vega protein bar (chocolate coconut is amazing) and a Protein drink – Vega’s Performance Protein. This protein powder comes in convenient single serve pouches, so I just throw it in a water bottle (and often all over me or the interior of my car. Anyone that has been in my car can attest to it’s less than immaculate interior cleanliness) and mix it up. Then I usually leave the water bottle in my car to fester for a few days adding to the lack of cleanliness of the car!

the dreaded ice tub in the garage

The drive home from the run locale is usually not more than 20minutes. Once home I head straight for the ice tub. So, usually I’m in the ice tub within 45minutes of completing my run/workout. Ideally I’d be in there as soon after finishing the workout as possible, but it is what it is. For 10-12minutes I scour my emails, twitter, and facebook to try to take my mind off how cold the ice bath is and to prevent myself from jumping ship on it before at least 10 minutes is up. As you can see from the pic today it was below 50F. I don’t recall what the pro-ice bath scientific studies recommend as a temperature, but this feels cold enough to me.

burrrr

Today, after the ice tubing I ran a hot bath, poured a bunch of epsom salts in and sat in the tub defrosting for 10 minutes. Typically this is not part of my routine, I usually just jump in a hot shower. But currently I’m dealing with a toe that is severely blistered and was going to submerge my foot in a bucket of epsom salt water in an attempt to heal up the toe, so figure why not submerge my legs too. If I feel amazing tomorrow it’s epsom salt baths from here on in.

While the tub was filling I made myself a smoothie because at this point we’re looking at being about 45min-1hr since I finished running. Smoothie included: banana, chocolate coconut milk, peanut butter, more Vega protein powder, Vega whole food health optimizer, and some ice. Magic bullet that mess of ingredients and ….appetite satiated for at least another 15min til I can get into the kitchen to make a real good mess.

Today’s lunch is pictured here. I was feeling creative. Typically I make a huge stack of pancakes and a few scrambled eggs. Recently I’ve been stopping at an all-you-can-eat Indian buffet that is on the way home. This is delicious, but I always, always eat way too much and feel a bit ill the rest of the day. When I do stop on the way home it just pushes the rest of the recovery routine 30min or so later. Today I made my take on huevos rancheros; had to substitute some standard multi-grain toast for the tortillas. T’was tasty if I do say so myself.

At this point I’m usually feeling pretty sleepy and will hit up a nap or just laze around. Eventually (sometimes immediately, sometimes not until later in the day or evening) I’ll make my way into what has apparently been named ‘Magic Legs’. I didn’t name it, and if you have a better name for it let me know and I’ll let the guys over at Altitude Technologies know. This device is a prototype so as you can see from the picture below it doesn’t look to glamorous…a metal box with some dials on it that makes lots of noise when turned on and a sleeping bag is a pretty accurate description!

How it works…basically you put your legs in the blue bag, tie a belt around your waste and turn the machine on. It sucks all the air out of the bag and compresses your legs. I don’t know the scientific term for it, maybe negative compression(?). I like to call it a poor mans Normatec MVP. But, I’ve been told by someone who tried out my device and the Normatec device that mine is for a really poor man The idea behind it is to compress the muscles and veins thereby increasing venous flow and getting the “junk” out of the muscles more quickly (I think….could be wrong about all that though). If nothing else it’s an excuse for me to sit on my ass for another 30-45minutes after my run.

If I’m feeling really frisky after Magic legs I’ll get out the trigger point foam roller and go to town on any areas that are particularly sore. But, usually I don’t bother. That would be a part of my Specialized recovery day, i.e. the ultimate recovery routine. As would a massage with Garfield Crooks and some PT time with Marilou Lamy. But, you can’t have it all all the time!

Okay that’s that. As I said before I only do all of this after hard workouts or long runs, not everyday. Any questions or comments let me know. Thanks for reading!