A week of recovery and then back to normal....

Rest and Recover

The week after brutal was a quiet week, focused on rest and recovery, restful days, easy sessions and plenty of sleep. 

The day after race day was a challenge in the way of walking, added with the combination of more than two flights of stairs a day because of my job at the time and movement was more tricky, I think it finally took till about Thursday to be walking like a normal person. Running was swapped out for gentle walks, stretching was added throughout the days during long periods of time waiting round and lots of focus on massage as well. 

I did manage to get out for a run through the week through, a short social on Thursday more walk than run and a short run on Sunday, a good way to start getting back to some sense of normal, recovery also saw me prioritise more time on sleep, getting to bed at a decent time and because of the change of shifts more focus on a lie in and less focus on early starts, the increase in sleep was a huge benefit to my recovery especially facing the fatigue from race day. 

My thoughts on the race

Last weeks Blog was a hard one to write, mostly because of the fact that every time I typed I mentally revisited each and every step of the race, every incline, decline, stone and patch of ground, Along with it the emotions that came with it. 

There are a few things I really learned from the race, the first being I am more capable that I actually believe i am, the second is that no matter where you come, what you achieve or what happens, always be proud of the adventure. 

We came in as the first duathlon relay team of the half brutal, looking at the list had we completed the full ride we would have also come through as the first team of the full too, the reason for this is because we were the only relay team for both, so in essence we won by default. Now some of you might say well you don't deserve it, you didn't come first you were the only one, BUT in order to get the award we needed to complete the distance, so whether you are 1st of 100 or 1st of 1 you deserve to win! 

The big question? Would we do it again? I'll be honest immediately after the race I said no, I didn't want to go up another mountain again, In fact I'm fairly sure during the trek back I said to some cheering squads that I had fallen out with the mountain, but after some time to rest and reflect I would go back, in fact I am tempted to target it next year but realistically need to target the year after. 

So I suppose to wrap up this week's blog, that was my last 'adventure' not really an adventure but certainly an experience. Check out some of the footage here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgfG9VBVTQo

I'm going to wrap it up there, 

thanks for reading, 

scribble back 

from Jessie

xxx