IM recovery = mega holiday

The few days post-ironman was much better than I imagined. Riding a euphoric high the whole week and I think my electrolyte mishap in the race which forced me to slog through the marathon at glacial pace was a blessing in terms of recovery since my body felt fine. I was riding the single-speed bike to work and back for the rest of the week with no ill effects.

However I was careful to follow all the advice in the articles I'd found on the web about ironman recovery and really take a month with no strenuous exercise, including not running at all for a few weeks.

In fact I took it so much to heart that 3 days after the finish I hopped on a plane with my wife to San Francisco and proceeded to spend the next four weeks eating, drinking, partying and sleeping at various stops around the world on what was one of the greatest holidays I have ever been on.

I won't go on about it (because I could easily ... for days) but it involved 7 stops around the world, going to the coolest cities and visiting some of our most awesome friends.

In terms of "exercise" over the month, there wasn't much to speak of. But it was really nice to have a lifestyle break where I would just eat whatever I felt like, stay up late and night drinking as much as I wanted (which isn't a lot for me any more), sleep in as late as I wanted and most importantly, spend plenty of time with my lovely wife who I had't been seeing that much over ht epast few months due to all the IM training.

With a heavily carb-loaded diet (stuffing in NY bagels and Parisienne pastries and baguettes) and not my usual amount of fresh fruit and veg I was able to put on about 5 kg, which pretty much takes me to a normal looking weight. Ironman training had me pretty light at 57kg, and Sarah wasn't appreciating the fact that you could see every vein in my body (even my back!)

We did do lots of walking and at the end of the second week I managed to get moving a little bit with very short slow jogs over the Williamsberg Bridge and back from Jacquie's place on the Lower East Side. I had a couple of jogs through Clapham Common and Battersea Park from Gen's house and did two runs with Mel in Paris along the canals. Israel I had some short slow jaunts up and down the beachfront and even managed a couple of swims in the crystal turquoise water at Frischmann Beach before the wind picked up and the surf boiled and raged in the final few days of our trip.

But I have to say all efforts were only for a few minutes and felt very very slow. Coming home (it's been exactly a week) I couldn't believe how much my fitness had deteriorated. Even the 4.5km ride to work has me breathing hard, and Pain in the Domain nearly killed me! I could barely walk for 3 days afterwards.