Recovery week

What a recovery week from the marathon ~ it was interesting how my body reacted.  I thought my recovery and energy were good with exception of the sore leg muscles in certain spots of my legs ~ until I did cardio  My legs were tired, but I persevered, the eliptical helped me with the tightness between my calf and my ankle.  Thanks to rolling out my legs on the roller they were not as sore as I believe they probably would have been.  My hip flexors and IT bands were the tightest but again the rolling pin and roller helped those too.  These are the problem areas that I have a chronic issue with.
Boot camp was a little tougher until the Thursday class.  It was still taxing but I felt that I had recovered better, and by Friday I felt like I was back to my old self.  My eating stayed regimented but it was a chore to do.  For two days after the race, I ate, but actually had to force myself to eat - I wasn't hungry - to the point of feeling nauseous.  But by Friday again, I was definitely hungry, right on schedule!  This was a good thing as we didn't want the marathon exercise to impact the metabolism of my body.

Blake took quick caliper measurements on Wednesday and found that I was up 10 mls in fat.  :(  He wasn't worried about this as he said there could be a lot of factors in this, water retention, having just done the marathon, and he had also reduced my cardio to once a day down from two to give my body a break.
For me the thought of going up 10 mls was painful,  knowing that I was still eating the same and having just ran the marathon and I was still up.  This coming week will be interesting to see where the numbers fall.  Blake told me no weights for Saturday just moderate cardio and as of Sunday I have now started back with my cardio this week as double cardio during the week.  I missed doing my squats and lat pulls; I can't believe I am even admitting that!  I think I know how important it is for my butt to be doing those squats!

This week has been a week of practicing posing in the mirror every chance I get.  Everytime I am in the bathroom, getting ready for work in the morning, walking around the house at night.  I want to make sure that it shows I have been practicing when we do our next posing session.  You tube has been rather interesting as well; however different associations want different poses I have found.

Roberta has given me a sequence from Yoga that will help strengthen and give me the arch that I need to have while standing and posing for how ever long it happens to be I am on stage.  Having the flexibility is crucial.

Sunday evening I filled out and printed out the entry form for the show.  It is signed and in the envelope waiting to be mailed tomorrow.  There will be no turning back...was there even a question of that?  Reading the form was a challenge as there are different catagories and having never done this before it can be a little confusing and overwhelming.  I could either do Figure Only which is done by age, from my understanding, or Figure Open Only which can include a number of ages and possibly heights?  I have decided on doing the Figure Open Only at the encouragement of my trainer - who seems to think I have a good shot at being judged with a larger number of women and placing in the top five.  We shall see....its all in the experience, right??

Bring on Wednesday, measurements, scale and pictures!  Can you believe it - I am curious to see if there are any changes within my body from last month.  I'm sure there are, but again, we are our own worst critics.  I just see the work that needs to be done...