Before Ultraman when I told people about the race they looked at me like I was crazy, but then again I guess I am crazy. I shared with you faithful readers about my prerace efforts and hopefully that was interesting. However not many people ask about how one feels 2-3 days or even 4 weeks after these kinds of races. People ask me what I wanted to eat when I finished and to be honestly my palette wasn’t craving any great foods, I just wanted to lay down and chase some more gnomes.
The day after the race we went to the awards ceremony, if you think people looks funny the day after an ironman or marathon, you should come to this awards ceremony. Everyone is so sore that people are scared to get close to others because they fear a touch may send their fellow competitors into cramps or spasms that would lead to death, its pretty funny to watch the athletes interact. It’s the fourth day of crewing for the crew as they must help keep the athlete upright while standing or even worse…walking. I think the debilitating factor of Ultraman is the double marathon, on pretty hard asphalt, after 2 days of racing. Also by the third day your body is already confused (I guess that’s what you call it) so you start the run extremely dehydrated. And then the 3rd Day of 6+ hours pounding on the roads makes your muscles flushed from liquid and pretty sore. Don’t you want to sign up now?
However, this year moving around was better than my first ever Ultraman. After that race I didn’t get out of the bed for a week, hell it might have been 2, I don’t remember. No matter what it still hurts really bad after each one. Now you definitely want to register! Of course the flight home didn't help much either. Last year I flew out right after the awards ceremony, not a smart move. This year was I stayed in Kona another 3 days after the race so my legs were not as bloated on the flight home. It took probably 2-3 more days before my walking stride became normal. Of course all this is to be expected after 3 days of pushing the limits during Ultraman.
Now comes the part that nobody talks about and few think about. The weeks after the race are where the recovery gets hard, the glow of the race begins to fade and the soreness declines but your body still isn’t back to 100%. For about 2 weeks all I wanted to do is to sleep. Not being able to focus on things is pretty hard especially since you have to rejoin the regular world. During this phase I really made sure I kept taking the usual supplements such as Multi-V, and Optygen to aid in my recovery. The stress on the body is hard enough that even walking into a room that some body was sick a month ago would put me under, so I had to be careful. The training was light, yes training, what you think I was gonna just do my work and sit around and watch T.V.! I trained to simply keep moving, to not let the body get stiff, to simply aid in blood flow. The problem is I really had no energy for anything, nothing at all, so it was more moving and not really training. My legs, and even cardio system returned to normal after about 3 weeks, but even as of now; 4 weeks later; there are days that my body is empty, and all I can think about is either sleep or a nap. I figure that 1 or 2 more weeks, and hopefully “Peter” will be back to normal the way everybody knows me.
After that – its time to start over again, with the preparation for the Ultraman Worlds 2010!
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