With my cardio conditioning, I haven’t really felt that much soreness with my running or cycling that I do. The biking to work has made my legs stronger and improved my running and I still use swimming as my recovery activity when I’m sore (it helps!).<\/p>\n
That being said, I recently hit a wall. My biking schedule for the bulk of the summer has been Mon-Wed-Fri. While I like it and it works great for me in my training, I realized this week that the schedule was too much. The reason it was too much was because by Monday I felt like crap. Fridays I biked to work, Saturdays I hit the weights hard and ran, Sunday I swam and by the time Sunday night arrived and I was packing my bag for Monday’s bike ride I was done. My body was done.<\/p>\n
I was sore. I was tired. I was mentally tired. My hips had been sore for a week (something that doesn’t happen often). My calf muscles had huge knots in them and when Michael pressed on them I thought I was going to pass out from the pain. My quads were tight and achy and no amount of foam rolling was going to fix them in time to ride to work the next day. Even my beloved Biofreeze couldn’t help me:<\/p>\n
I took a day off.<\/p>\n
There is a reason that my workout routine has been Friday, Saturday, Sunday, REST MONDAY, Tuesday, Wednesday, rest Thursday. The reason? Because my body needs a rest after 3 days of working out. I cannot do physical activity for 4 or 5 days in a row. It hurts.<\/p>\n
I recognized that I was getting close to overtraining and did not want an overuse injury. Been there, done that. Sometimes it’s ok to take an unscheduled day off. So that’s what I did. It didn’t take much convincing, either. I knew I needed a break.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The plan was to go for a run on Tuesday after work. Yeah…….that didn’t really happen. I met my friend Sam for happy hour at East Burn<\/a>, one of my favorite restaurants in Portland. The food is always fantastic, the service is always friendly and the atmosphere is just plain cool. Sam and I sat out on the back patio surrounded by bamboo and sitting next to a fountain. It was a nice night.<\/p>\n Sam and I shared all our happy hour eats. We got the pulled pork sliders on tiny brioche buns, mac n’ cheese and the spinach and pear salad. Everything tasted wonderful. The sliders were small but satisfying. The mac n’ cheese was so good I wanted to order another (but I didn’t).<\/p>\n Tuesday nights are also $2 pint night! Score! I got the Mojo IPA Nitro<\/a>. It was good, a lighter IPA than I’m used to (which is strange since it was a nitro) but I liked it. Sam got the Coffee IPA from Migration<\/a>. I do NOT like my beer to taste like coffee. And I don’t want my beer to taste like chocolate, either. I’m purist, I guess. But I had a sip of Sam’s beer and it was surprisingly good. Then we shared a Diablo Rojo<\/a> from Boneyard (my current favorite brewery).<\/p>\n After spending a few hours at the restaurant, we went for a walk around the neighborhood and then I headed home. Still planning on going for a run. I got home and decided I just wasn’t into it. So I took another rest day. Instead of exercising, Michael and I walked a mile around the nearby track.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/eastburn-e1345649757723-225x300.jpg\" "\\"eastburn\\"")
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