Thank you for all the cards, flowers, candygrams, well wishes, notes, gifts, praises, fruit baskets, mixed nuts, donations and to the person that also sent the stripper…..spot on.
Have a bad race, kind words and actions will follow. Somewhere in mid America there is a water tower with SAVE ELF painted on it. Even better if that water tower is filled with peanut butter cups.
*hint hint*
After a race, you think about what worked, what didn’t work and then you have recovery. One of the most frustrating things about have a frustrating race performance is that for the few days after the race there’s not much you can do. It’s not like you can channel your frustrations into a recovery ride. You can’t beat yourself up during a day off.
Alas all you can do is…recover. And recovery takes time. In the meantime, how do you fill all of that time? I’ve got some ideas.
1) Let husband go grocery shopping. Chances are that he will return with a tub of peanut butter cups.
2) Wake up and eat coffee for breakfast. That’s right, drive 10 minutes away from your house to pay money for coffee that you very well could have made yourself. Buy the biggest cup they have and fill it with at least two inches of cream.
3) When you finally feel like eating breakfast – skip it and go straight to lunch instead. Lunch requires a spoon, a jar of peanut butter, a glass of milk. That goes well with peanut butter cups, may I add.
4) Distract yourself with family drama, even better if it involves a pet psychic.
5) Go for an easy run and blame your 12:49 pace on weak satellites.
6) Find yourself on an easy ride feeling like the hills have gotten harder. Accuse husband of replacing your gears with 12 – 21. When he tells you’ve got 12 – 27, make a mental note to go home and count it – just to be sure.
7) When you drop your chain for the second time going up a hill, just push yourself the rest of the way with one foot. Slow is as slow does.
8) Dog park because you have not met your “I need to talk to one crazy person a week” quota.
10) I just realized I forgot #9.
11) Get on your stomach, look under the couch and decide you don’t need to clean what you can’t see.
12) Eat dinner at Noodles for the 10932840298th time this month.
13) Go for a recovery walk with your mom. Understand that the answer to any of your problems can be solved with one thing = baby.
14) Take dog in field behind house. Rather than play fetch with a ball like a NORMAL FREAKIN’ DOG, chase him away from massive pile of dog poo that he really wants to eat. Like – REALLY wants to eat it.
15) When your husband says something like “All that’s left to do is fluff the couscous with a fork” see where this reply goes: “you want to fluff me with your fork?”
16) Email ABK. A lot.
17) Bake a loaf of banana bread. Consider yourself in 1st place when you consume ¾ of it all by yourself.
18) DO NOT LOOK AT RACE PHOTOS OF YOURSELF.
19) If you should do #18, quickly insert #17 out of pity.
20) Find the most ridiculous thing you can become a fan of on Facebook (found it – “not being bitten by squirrels”).
21) Stay up until 2am – just ‘cuz.
22) Avoid the pool as long as possible.
23) Take one shower and ONE SHOWER ONLY for at least one day.
24) Consider a new sport – when marathoning pops into your head, hit yourself.
25) Do not do any housework or any work. Recovery is synonymous with holiday meaning you have permission to sit on your ass and get nothing done. Note that this will actually work against you if you run your own business. You will find yourself mid-week cursing your co-workers for getting nothing done.
26) Pick up sticks in the backyard. Consider it a workout. Log it into Training Peaks as “cross training.”
27) Drive around blasting “Blame It On The Alcohol” like it’s your anthem for…anything.
28) Go through an entire day wearing underwear. When was the last time you did that?
29) Make handcrafted invitations to your pity party.
30) Color yourself unimpressed with eating vegetables for dinner.
31) DO NOT LOOK AT RACE RESULTS.
32) If you should do #31 then insert #27 again.
Hmm…that’s all I’ve got so far. As you can see, it’s been a pretty exciting recovery week. Tomorrow I’m going for a ride with JG and have a feeling my recovery ends there. I’m a little scared but then again I know I can pull out #29 if things really go bad.
And I swear if I ride by a water tower with my name on it, I’m turning around.
Happy recovery!
