After my hilly trail run yesterday, my training schedule today was light.  I had a one hour, active recovery bike ride, which I did first thing this morning.

For the rest of the day, I have been sitting at a desk, participating in work meetings.  Sitting at a desk all day, is not good for you on the best of days, but today it was particularly bad.  As the day wore on, I became aware of how sore my quads were getting.  They are quite tender to touch and walking down stairs is a bit of a challenge and painful.

I have a case of DOMS.  DOMS is Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness.  My muscles are indeed sore and the onset of that soreness was of course delayed; it started almost 24 hours after ending my run.  The soreness is caused by my body responding to micro-tears in my muscles.  It’s an inflammatory response, which also causes some stiffness.

I have had DOMS many times before, but it has been quite a long time, since the last time I had it.  I am pretty sure the reason I have it now, is because yesterday, I asked my muscles to do something they don’t normally do.  I asked the muscles to deal with climbing and descending, VERY steep slopes.  I obviously run up and down hills all the time, but yesterday, I was using all my strength to stay balanced and upright on those steep slopes, especially going down them.

Fortunately, DOMS is not a serious injury and it usually goes away, in a day or two.  Ironically, one of the best ways to deal with it, is to exercise.  I just need to avoid strenuous exercise. 

I have an easy pace run on the schedule tomorrow.  That should be perfect for easing some of the soreness that I have.  I also have fewer work meetings, so I will take advantage of that to get up from my desk and move around more.  Hopefully, I will be recovered enough, to do my tempo paced run on Wednesday.