I’ve been curious about the level of fatigue and soreness that is safe and appropriate during training.  It seems like a fine line to balance between stressing the body enough for fitness gain and then recovering enough to adapt.  Lately, I have been pushing harder than ever and adding back more consistent strength on top of land running.  As a result, my muscles are sore! My body is fatigued.  Fatigue is normal to carry when races are coming up, before the taper, but I suspect my soreness levels may be a bit too high given where I am in training right now.  My hamstrings especially do not want to play.
Normally, its the calves but those seem to be fine which may be due to all the obsessive stretching I have been doing for them post foot injury.  Glad to see that is working.

Here is what I am doing:

1. I whine a lot…although this does not seem to have any benefit whatsoever on alleviating the soreness and it seems to increase the fatigue while also aggravating poor Nick.

2.  Hydrate

3.  Sleep 7.5 hours when I’m training hard

4.  Skipping workouts that are not “key” or dialing back the intensity.

5. FOAM ROLLER and “The Stick”

The Foam Roller is painful post workout necessity for me lately.  Rolling around on this unassuming torture device (ha) is essentially a cheaper and more convenient way to massage out those muscle trigger points than going to the massage therapist as much as I’d like to!  You roll around as photo above demonstrates and the weight of  your body rolls out the tightness in the muscles.  Ouch!
The Stick is like a bendy rolling pin allowing you to hit smaller different muscles.
Hopefully by tomorrow some of this weekend’s soreness will be alleviated.