It has been 8 days since I ran the Long Beach Marathon.

I cannot lie, the first two days after the marathon were pretty uncomfortable. I spent most of Sunday afternoon watching football, resting, hydrating, and napping. I had Joe stretch out my legs for me which was very kind of him. I got a great nights sleep. Monday was pretty uncomfortable. I didn’t do too much of anything all day (luckily I had the day off) and my legs needed the day off. My feet were in pretty rough shape too with blood blisters and a toe nail that finally came off yesterday. I felt much better when I woke up Tuesday but I had to stand all day at work on Tuesday which really tested my legs. Sitting, bending, and walking up and down stairs was very uncomfortable and walking for 6 hours or so didn’t help the situation.

Wednesday and Thursday were much better and by Friday I had no soreness. I decided to wait until today to go on my first post marathon run. I’m really glad I waited. I probably could have tried earlier but my legs would have been very fatigued. The rest was necessary. I did a simple 4 mile out and back on the Strand and it was a fantastic run. No groin or ankle pain thank goodness! My legs were still a bit on the tired side.

Official photos are in! Running hard on the beach path.

Moving forward my running plan is just to do what feels good for the first month post-marathon. Last time I ran a marathon I was frustrated by how tired my legs still felt a few weeks out so I’m just gonna do what feels good for at least 1 month and then assess how I feel and where I am. I have to say: I have a burning desire to run the LA Marathon. I’m putting that decision on hold for a month so I can let the PR glow wear off a bit. I just know that I haven’t reached near my potential in training. There is so much room for improvement in my training meaning there is a lot of room to set a new PR. This is very enticing to me. No decision today but it’s on my mind. There are other training options on the table (get fast at a half marathon? Tri?) but I have plenty of time to figure out what I want to do.

In the meantime I’m focusing on doing what feels good, although after setting a new PR running feels pretty damn good right now. My other post-marathon goal is to focus on nutrition. I definitely use training as an excuse to eat like a glutton and I’ve gained some non-muscle training weight. Not a big deal. I’m just using Lose It! to track what I’m eating. I also am breaking down the nutrients in what I’m eating. I think if I eat smarter I will become a better runner.

Oh hey, a marathon photo.

In other news: I worked over my reported splits with my statistician (my dad) and realized that there is NO WAY the splits for mile 20 onward are accurate. 4 15 min miles followed by 2 5 min miles? Completely impossible. I was a bit bummed my stats weren’t accurate. My dad seemed to think I likely ran 13 min miles 20-24 and 9 min miles 24-26.2. I tell him all my times when I run so I trust his judgment. He also pointed out that I ran Long Beach 9% faster than I ran Chicago.

I believe I likely ran a 9 min mile for mile 25 and the .2 nub of mile 26 thanks to the above tattooed man. Thanks bro.

People keep telling me that I am a very photogenic runner. I assure you that I am not and if you look at my official race photos you can tell. Not my most flattering. I look like I’m running a marathon and not paying attention to the photographers. This is probably a good thing. Who wants to be the jackass holding up the race and posing ridiculously for photos? These race photos were exceptionally bad.

See I am not always photogenic.

Also, Gillian requested that I post my running playlist so here it is.

I repeat many songs while I run. This time around I was really into “Black Skinhead” by Kanye West and “Can’t Hold Us” by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. Throughout my training I started putting 2 or 3 new songs on my training playlist. I did this for the race with 3 songs from the original Jock Jams. I am ashamed to admit how excited I was when “Pump the Jam” came on. Yay 1990’s. I hesitated to put “Shake it Off” by Florence and the Machine on my playlist but I was glad I did. It came on around mile 23. That song reminds me so much of the first time I took the bar exam. It reminded me of the frustrations I’ve had in the past year and really motivated me. Finally, I made the playlist extra long because I just wasn’t sure how long I would be running for. “Rebel Girl” by Bikini Kill was the last song that played as I ran downhill to the finish. “Rebel Girl” is one of my favorite running songs. I heard it start, I got excited but got so swept up as I was booking it to the finish line that I stopped listening to the music. Being so into a moment that you forget music is playing? Priceless.