Fast Running Blog

What would be the best therapeutic methods for helping speed up the recovery of my quads from running downhill legs in the Wasatch Back?

Rest, active recovery, cross training, massage, and ibprofin...

Is there any good vitamins or foods I can eat that will help?

Ice bath, once a day for the next few days. Fill your tub with cold water (so that it covers your legs), get in, and start adding ice. That way, you will adjust slowly as the ice makes the water colder. I've found that adding ice, and then getting in is unbearable.

This is also my Alta Peruvian Downhill Dash cure.

In terms of nutrition, try to drink plenty of water. Dehydration will make things worse.

Take a rolling pin to them a roll them out as hard as you can stand.  Do this daily until the soreness is gone.  Along with the other suggestions.

Man, Josse, I tried the rolling pin yesterday and couldn't stand it- too painful!

Have a roommate/spouse/training partner do the rolling pin.  I did this on Paul after the 10 mile downhill race we did last week.

Ice baths are crucial:  I guess I am stronger than Paul because I put in the ice then put myself in :)

I would also suggest an easy recovery run even if you feel way sore.  If you can't stand to run much, then take a couple of walks today, and do two short two-a-days tomorrow. 

Ok, sorry, not the same Paul's!  The rolling pin was my spouse, the ice jab was to Paul Petersen.  Sorry for the  confusing post!

It's not really a fair comparison. There are anatomical differences that make ice baths more painful for men.

I tried the Stick and it was painful but helped.  I am sore enough that I might try the ice bath myself tonight.

Wow. These are all great suggestions. My quads are feeling better just from me reading them.

You baby!  No pain no gain, right.  Jeff is more of a man than you :P

My question is whether soreness (which I assume is caused mainly by lactic acid buildup) gets less pronounced as your weekly mileage goes up?

I am running 20-35 miles per week.  When I did my long run (18 miles) last Saturday, my legs were screaming.  They were fine by Monday, but I knew that I would not be able to do TOU marathon with legs in that much pain at mile 18.  Does the distance pain subside with more distance?  Or should I start walking every mile like Galloway suggests?

Thanks,

John

John:

After a long period of consistent training the muscles become more and more damage-tolerant. When I was high school it took as little as a hard 10 mile run to get my legs sore. Now they are hardly ever sore. Only some major impact workout or race can get them there, and I mean major. They are not sore after St. George, I can still run to the stake center in the evening at 6:00 pace when I am late for the Priesthood Session of the General Conference.

I do not see how lactic acid could cause the soreness in a long run. If you run that long, you would have to run aerobically, so not much lactic acid would be produced. More likely it is the muscle damage from pounding for a long period of time.

For everybody's benefit - (I put this at the top of every blog page for a reason), a quote from

http://asksasha.com/Running/Top-10-Training-Mistakes.html

:

Your average daily mileage (excluding the long run) has been around 4 miles. This allows you to go no more than 12 according to the above rule which is a very generous upper limit rule. In other words, do not feel like you have to get to 3 x daily mileage in the long run, this would give a 10 miles a day guy a long run of 30 miles! What I would recommend is keeping your long run at 10-12 miles, but training your body to run at least 6 miles every day at first. Keep the pace slow. No need to run hard or do frequent time trials. Be patient, develop your aerobic capacity and injury resistance first. Nothing wrong with 10:00 pace. Run as slow as you have to to comfortably cover the distance.

Yup, Sasha is right.  Soreness is due to muscle micro-tears, not lactic acid (for the most part).  And I had the exact same thought as him in terms of your long run being too long based on your other training.  Like he said, long run shouldn't be more than about 30% of your weekly mileage (40% is absolute max).  If you don't want to increase weekly mileage but want to do a marathon, the run-walk Galloway preaches is the only way to go.

That being said, increasing weekly mileage will improve your speed a lot more than run-walk.

By the way, Sasha has superhuman quads- even most elite runners have very sore legs/quads after St. George.