Sports Massage

Well today I got my first ever sports massage. Annette had been for her first the week before the marathon. She loved it and pretty much all the local runners here told me that I had to go see "Christy" after the marathon. With the shape that my legs were in for the first few days I figured that nothing short of an MRI, casts and lots of pain pills would help. Luckily things did get better through the end of last week and Annette scheduled me an appointment for today. All I can say is WOW. It was AWESOME. I did not realize that muscles had so many knots in them. I could feel the knots rolling out as she massaged my legs. She said I was still a little tense but I think that was because I wasn't sure how hard she would be massaging my sore spots. We discussed these up front and I told her where all my aches and pains were. She massaged all of them pretty hard at times but none of it was painful. Afterwards she basically said that my legs were trashed. They are very tight and the tendons in my calves are all stressed. She recommended taking it easy for a while to let things heal up with icing and finger massages to help too. No heat. Even though she is not a doctor, I felt much better after hearing what she was telling me. So, I have pretty much ordered myself to two weeks of rest and no running. Not sure if I can make it that long but I'm not going to run any until my leg feels normal again. Then I'll start back slow and easy. I'll probably go back for another massage in a couple weeks. I really didn't want to leave today, it was that good, very relaxing and it did help a lot. Massage will now be a regular part of training and racing for me.