These stairs never felt this high. They are nothing special, just the stairs in my house, but still my legs hurt with every step I take. I guess it’s the result of yesterday’s strength training and this morning’s run. But to be honest; I’m in love with painful legs.

You have good pain and bad pain. Bad pain is injury pain, or a wound. Good pain is that nice muscle pain that tells you you’ve been working hard. Okay, there is a limit to that as well. You can overdo it, but the pain I have today is good pain. The pain of progress.

Piece of wood

I threw around my training schedule yesterday and I’m going to do it today one more time. See, yesterday I stepped on my yoga mat to do some Vinyasa Flow Yoga. I did a bit before we went to Rimini, as I was supposed to teach a Yoga for Athletes class. Sadly enough I got sick, but luckily Sara could step in for me. But the thing is, I’m a piece of wood.

Somewhere in September/October last year I started to struggle with my shoulder and I couldn’t do Vinyasa Flow Yoga anymore. It later turned out I have a frozen shoulder. I am not flexible by nature, rather the opposite. I did do yoga, but Yin Yoga. It kept my tendons flexible, but didn’t do that much for my muscles. I like to take care of my muscles as well. On top of that, Sara and I have a big yoga retreat coming up. I have to be in shape for that, which means doing more yoga again. More is daily, not every other day as I had planned in my new schedule. That’s why I changed it yesterday.

Strength, running and yoga

It means I’m running 4 mornings a week and on the other 3 mornings I’m doing yoga. Plus, I do a bit of yoga at the end of my running days. On my yoga days I do strength training.

Yesterday was a yoga morning, followed by a strength session in the late afternoon. I picked a strength class on the FitOn app. You can’t see the exercises up front. It turned out to be a leg and arm strength class, which meant we were doing lots of forward lunges, squats and side lunges.

This morning Sara and I went for a combi training session: running 3 times 1,5 kilometers, followed by forward, reverse and side lunges, squats and calf raises. After that I did a few tempo runs on my own. Now, going up the stairs, I can feel every lunge I did.

I am happy with my painful legs. It’s the pain I want. Yet, I think it’s wise to adjust my training schedule a bit more. No more  leg strength the day before a combination training session. That will at least allow me to get up the stairs next time.