The hills in today’s photograph destroyed my quads.  I am really feeling the after effects of the downhill sections of my Malvern Hills End-To-End run.  I still wanted to run today, to aid in recovery, so I chose to do a super easy run.

This morning I had two lingering after effects from my run.  I had open blisters on both my heels and my quads were really sore.  As a result, it would have been very easy for me, to just take a day off from working out.  I did think about it, but I thought that a super easy run, would help my recovery.  My thinking however, was that a run on a flat route, would help loosen my tight muscles.

I patched up my blisters and hoped that they wouldn’t be an issue on my run.  That proved to be the case.  I never felt them at all.  It is going to take about a week to ten days, for them to heal completely, but if running doesn’t bother them, I should be good to go.

I couldn’t do anything about my sore quads however, except grit my teeth and run.  The muscles were very painful for the first hundred yards or so of my run, but after that they were bearable.  I could feel soreness in my quads for most of my run, but nothing I couldn’t handle.  If I hadn’t chosen a super easy run however, I am sure it would have been much worse.

My pace was really slow on today’s run.  That doesn’t bother me at all however.  It was the pace that I needed to run at, in order to help my muscles recover. This is why it is important to not to get hung up about run pace.  Just run at a given effort and let the pace fall where it does.  It did that today and I was slow.  It is what it is….