[at-l] Hoplite's recovery time...

[sloetoe at yahoo.com (Sloetoe)]

From:  Logan Park <lpark@u...> 
Date:  Mon Sep 6, 2004  7:41 pm 

To all you long distance hikers out there, I'm wondering how
long it took for your body to recover from the pounding you gave
it on your hike. A month has passed since I finished my
thruhike, and though my knees continue to recover and
strengthen, I find I still can't negotiate stairs at a normal
walking pace. Jogging is still prohibitive, too.
Remarks, anyone?
Hop
### First off, how'd you come to be sore? Diagnosing the cause
accurately would go a long way toward better aiming the cure.

And I don't think it was your hike that necessarily made you
sore. I observed you (and the others we were with) there in that
"last State" and at the end of your hike, you were well-fed
(well, at least 'not gaunt'!), you were not hiking hugely-long
miles (25-30s stacked up, etc), and you did not appear to be
harboring bodily harmful habits.

I needed no "recovery" when I finished my throughhike in '79,
nor do I need recovery now, post-6 weeks' worth, nor on *any*
hike I've done. But this year, I *did* run as soon as I got
home, and was *hugely* sore 24 hours later. But it was all on
the auxilliaries, not the major muscle groups. I was running on
unyielding concrete, not strolling on mountains, and the impact
is harder. You mentioned jogging being prohibitive -- I'd
observe that all those muscles that do auxilliary duty -- all
the balance and proprioception mechanics -- they're not used to
the heavy-duty impacts of running *at* *all*, and you'd better
start from scratch and ignore the fact that your cardio-vascular
and major-muscle groups are 100%-stoked. Take a long time to get
back to running on hard surfaces. (Hey, go run trail!) (To put
this in another way, imagine trying to repeat a weight machine
routine with dumbbells instead -- a HUGE recipe for
pain/anguish.)

Second, remember that on trail, you might automatically give
yourself 2-3-5-10 minutes of slower walking to get everything
warmed up and untightened and into its full range of motion. You
have to do that now, too. If you're only getting up and walking
50' before sitting back down again and retightening, you're not
going to see an un-sore moment in your day. Phooey.

Third, if you were eating NSAIDS like I've read in other emails,
YOW!, you wuz in trouble. (Yeah, that liver strain, combined
with NSAIDS sucking water out of your already dehydrated system,
starts an evil cycle.) That soreness points to a long-term lack
of stuff (muscle and joint tissue, etc.) that could come about
if you habitually lacked any of {water, nutrients, proteins}. If
you didn't give your body the tools to respond to the stress,
it'll wear down. So! Imagine you'd just finished a first, hard,
marathon: red meat, multivitamin (esp. C/E), and go sloe. Oh,
and some Jello to go along with the glucosamine/chondroitan.

Ease off. Warm up. Stretch out. Eat up. Walk off.
'Toe out.

=====
Spatior! Nitor! Nitor! Tempero!
   Pro Pondera Et Meliora.