Poor Man's Massage

My marathon training schedule has me running three days, day off, two days, day off. The three days are not too bad - this week was 8 miles, 3 miles with sprints and then 9.2 miles. Each run is fine, but somehow you add them all up and I am SORE by that rest day! After the rest I get to run 5 miles easy and then my long run. Tomorrow is my long run which will hopefully be 17 miles.

The last few weeks I have been super sore in my upper shoulders and neck and a friend suggested I go get deep tissue massage - unfortunately there is no money in my running fund for massage as it all just went to new shoes. And by the way, the older you get, the more important it is to get new shoes often to help prevent injury and soreness.

So in case you are a runner and you are sore and you don't have money for deep tissue massage, here is what I did last night.

First, I used a golf ball in a sock and rolled the bottom of my foot down on it to give the bottom of my foot a nice deep massage.

Next, I used a tennis ball in a sock (a bigger sock) and put it on the wall behind my back and shoulders, and sort of rolled it around my back while pushing on the wall - does that make sense? I did realize at one point that I was in my room with the light on and the window open so the neighbors might see and think I was pretending to be a bear scratching my back on a tree. Because that is what you look like. But my shoulders got a great massage from that!

Lastly, I used a stick to roll the muscles in my calves and quads. Admittedly, I have a fancy "runner stick" now to roll those muscles - a birthday gift/hand me down from a friend. But before I had the fancy stick, I had a plain ol rolling pin which wasnt the best but did just fine.

After the massage I put ice on my shoulders and my hubby said I looked like a linebacker and wondered if I could possibly be comfortable but I felt deep massage sore and not plain old sore which felt great!

I think we are about 7 weeks out now. Things are getting serious and I hope I live to tell you about the long run tomorrow. Thanks for stopping in!