Active recovery

They say you should rest 1 day for every mile you race before racing again. Whoever came up with that rule might be right; in that this may prevent injury but I'd bet any money they never followed the rule all of the time and they sure as heck didn't have much fun!!

I've had a fairly relaxing week since the big run on Monday.

Tues was the relaxing drive back from Beantown, eating and drinking as I pleased but not much appetite and no crazy cravings except for ice-cream.

Weds was back to work with walking back and forth for lunch and a total of 3 miles

Thurs and Friday was the same with walking 3 miles each day and the legs getting limbered up and feeling better. Even jogged a bit on the way in Friday am. But suddenly I found myself signed up on our office bedrace team for the weekend event around town. It's a fun event to raise money for the local youth center which is now under construction and will provide much needed recreation for the local teens. Surely a little jog around town can't hurt, eh?

Pre-race team photo with team-captain resting up. Race rules called for a team of 5 with one person 'in bed' at all times. At times it got kinda crowded up there ;-)

And the race is on through the beautiful streets of St. Andrews. There goes the mayor and his team of councillors!

A closeup of our town Mayor 'Bubbles' Craig in the drivers seat.

There were some neat designs including boats.

Garden beds...
Our little team including the 'infamous' shorts yet again. Notice that it looks like I'm the only one running and everyone else is either on or trying to get on the bed!?

Brave but final place finish by our volunteer fire and ambulance brigade!

Garmin race profile showing the race route around the downtown, the elevation profile (green) and pace per mile (blue). Total distance of 2.44 miles in 21 minutes at 8:35/mi pace.

Yeow! It was not just a little jog at all with hard effort by the team from the get go. Only 2 of the 5 were runners but I was impressed with how they all worked so hard to get around the loop. We used the downhills to advantage with up to 3 people in the bed at a time and then had a bunch of quick changes to give folks a rest. I took one 30 sec break on the downhill of front street and it was a nice feeling to just pushed along. The legs felt quite good for this short but hard effort though there was some deep aches and pains that I don't usually feel. It took a few minutes to recover at the end and we passed several beds that had started in the wave start well in front of us. Final placing was 2nd overall in a field of 10 or 12. Great fun and no damage done!