My wife and I decided to take the scenic route back from Geneva, NY to Pittsburgh.  After most races, we tend to rush home, but now I am retired, things are a little different.  On the way home, we decided to visit Watkins Glen State Park.

The State Park is beautiful and the stream through the gorge, was a raging torrent today.  We hiked the gorge trail to see the nineteen waterfalls, that the park is famous for.  Of course, waterfalls require elevation, so to see the waterfalls, we needed to do a fair amount of climbing.

After racing hard yesterday, my legs were not in the greatest shape.  My quads, in particular, were very sore.  When you have sore quads, climbing stairs is a challenge and descending them just hurts.  This meant that Watkins Glen State Park, was probably not a very smart choice for a post-race visit.

To be honest, climbing up the stairs, as we penetrated deep into the gorge, was not too bad. Eventually however, we needed to turn around and come back down.  This is when it got painful for me.  I felt every stair step down in my quads; all 465 stair steps down.  Yes.. I counted them all.

Despite the pain, I had a great day.  Now I am back home, I will be focusing on recovery for a day or two, before beginning my training for Ironman Chattanooga in September.