Tough Mudder South West is done. Two runs, one weekend, plenty of mud (😂 ok, not much mud, more dust), a fair bit of travelling and, unsurprisingly, a body that has spent the first few days afterwards reminding me exactly what I put it through.
But recovery is part of the training too.
This week is about seeing how quickly the body settles, keeping an eye on the usual recovery markers, and working out when it is sensible to start pushing again rather than simply assuming that because the event is over, everything has reset to zero.
With bigger challenges ahead, particularly the step up towards Infinity and ultimately World’s Toughest Mudder, recovering well between hard efforts is going to become just as important as the efforts themselves.
So this post is a running record of the week after South West: how I’m feeling, what the numbers are saying, what training I’m doing, and how the body responds as I move from post-Mudder recovery back into preparation for the next one.
The biggest takeaway from Tough Mudder Yorkshire was that the muscles in my legs quite simply had never been put through that sort of sustained effort before. More than two hours of running, walking, climbing and hauling myself around an obstacle course was completely new territory.
I had also done very little stretching in the build-up to Yorkshire and, boy oh boy, I could tell in the days afterwards. My legs were tight, sore and generally made it very clear that they were not impressed with what I had asked them to do.
So, in the run-up to South West, I made a point of changing that.
Daily stretching classes on Peloton became part of my routine, particularly lower-body sessions, and I backed off slightly on the intensity of some of the cycling classes. Waking up on Sunday morning, the difference was noticeable. My legs actually felt remarkably good considering what they had been through the day before.
The only real pain was in my right leg, courtesy of those pesky Hero Walls and something I clearly got wrong somewhere along the way. There is no visible bruising, but I am fairly sure I have developed a lump where there definitely was not one before, so my suspicion is some fairly deep bruising.
After the usual Sunday trip over to see Mum, church and lunch, I got home and decided that the afternoon exercise session needed to be very much about recovery rather than training.
I started with 50 minutes of stretching, 30 minutes focused on the lower body followed by 20 minutes of full-body work. Then I hopped onto the bike for a 45-minute Low Impact Sweat Steady class.
Nothing heroic. Nothing particularly intense. Just movement.
Interestingly, the leg caused me almost no trouble during the session. The one exception came when I tried to lie on my right side for one of the stretches.
Absolutely not.
Putting my body weight directly onto that part of the leg was clearly not happening, so I quickly abandoned that particular position and worked around it.
Afterwards, I got the massage gun out and gave the area some attention. Whether it actually achieved anything, I have absolutely no idea, but that is part of this whole process too.
There is going to be a lot of trial and error over the coming months. Learning what helps my body recover, what makes no difference, and what probably needs to be avoided is all part of preparing for the much bigger endurance challenges ahead.
The encouraging part was that, apart from the Hero Wall injury, the legs themselves felt considerably better than they had after Yorkshire.
That feels like progress.
Getting out of bed this morning was still painful.
This blasted right glute, thigh and leg are constantly making their presence known. There is a persistent throbbing and general discomfort, and I am becoming more convinced that if I had tackled the Hero Walls with better technique, I would probably be feeling absolutely fine.
The rest of my legs feel surprisingly good. It is this one specific area that is causing all the grief.
Today was also the return to work which, unfortunately, usually means spending far too much of the day sitting at a computer. Not exactly ideal when the thing I seem to need most at the moment is regular movement.
Thankfully, there was a risk assessment taking place today, which meant I had an excuse to get up, walk around and spend some time away from the desk.
Admittedly, I was hobbling around rather than striding confidently through the building, but movement is movement. It certainly felt better than sitting still for hours and letting everything tighten up.
Once I got home, though, it was time to see what the legs actually had in them.
So, onto the Peloton I climbed.
Ironically, one of the hardest parts was simply clipping in and out of the pedals. The twisting movement needed to release my shoe puts pressure through exactly the part of the leg that does not want to be twisted at the moment.
Once clipped in, however, things felt considerably better.
I had originally thought about taking things relatively easy, but curiosity got the better of me. I wanted to know how much was still in the tank after Saturday, so I opted for a 60-minute Power Zone Endurance ride followed by another 30-minute Power Zone Endurance class.
Ninety minutes on the bike.
I was never going to be troubling any personal bests, nor was that the intention, but I did want to put in a proper sustained effort and see how the body responded.
The answer was encouraging.
The legs were capable of considerably more than I might have expected just two days after completing both the 15K and 5K at Tough Mudder South West.
I finished the session with what has quickly become one of my favourite 20-minute lower-body stretching classes. Given everything I learned after Yorkshire, stretching is no longer something I am treating as an optional extra.
And that probably brings me to the main conclusion from the first couple of days of recovery.
The severe stiffness I experienced after Tough Mudder Yorkshire increasingly looks as though it was not an inevitable consequence of doing a Tough Mudder. It was more likely the result of putting my body through something completely new without having done enough mobility and stretching work beforehand.
My preparation for South West was better.
Not perfect. But definitely better.
This time, the muscles themselves have recovered remarkably well. The problem I am dealing with now appears to have come from one particular obstacle and, most likely, poor technique while attempting it.
That is another lesson to take forward.
Fitness will get me around these courses, but fitness alone is not enough. As the events become longer and the challenges become harder, good obstacle technique is going to matter just as much.
There is little point building the endurance to keep going for hours if I injure myself unnecessarily by attacking an obstacle the wrong way.
Recovery lesson number two: prepare the body properly, but respect the technique too.
Apparently doing two Tough Mudders in one day does eventually catch up with you.
The muscles themselves still feel surprisingly good, but today the lack of energy has really started to show. I am not particularly sore, I just feel drained.
I still managed an hour and 35 minutes on the bike, but it certainly was not effortless. There was none of Thursday-night-legs-about-to-set-a-record enthusiasm. It was simply a case of turning the pedals and getting the work done.
The right leg is improving too. I am still limping a little and both walking and sitting can be uncomfortable, but it is definitely heading in the right direction.
Cycling itself remains almost completely pain free. Weirdly, the difficult bit is still getting on and off the bike. That twisting movement when clipping in and out goes straight through the part of the leg that is complaining.
It is another interesting distinction between muscular recovery and overall recovery.
My legs can pedal. My cardiovascular system can work. But apparently the body as a whole would quite like a little more time to catch up.
Perhaps that should not be surprising. South West was not simply a couple of hours of exercise. There was the travelling, the heat, the obstacles, the 15K, the 5K and the cumulative effort of the whole weekend.
Maybe recovery is not always going to announce itself through aching muscles.
Sometimes it might simply be the batteries running low.
I am completely wiped again.
There is definitely a lesson developing here, and perhaps it is a fairly obvious one.
Maybe I am pushing myself too hard.
One of the things I am trying to learn through this whole journey is the difference between the discomfort that comes with training and the signs that the body simply needs recovery. They are not necessarily the same thing.
I could probably have climbed onto the bike tonight and forced myself through another session. But what exactly would that have achieved?
So, for once, I decided not to chase another cycling total.
Instead, I spent a full hour doing stretching and yoga. No leaderboard. No output target. No calorie target. Just mobility, movement and recovery.
Then came a nice hot bath with Radox muscle soak salts, followed by an evening doing absolutely nothing strenuous whatsoever.
The whole point of keeping this post-event diary is to understand what my body needs after these events, particularly as I start moving towards longer endurance challenges.
That means learning when to work.
But it also means learning when not to work.
Let’s see what tomorrow brings.
Boom.
Loads of energy tonight.
After struggling through Tuesday and feeling completely wiped on Wednesday, suddenly the batteries appear to have been replaced.
Two hours and 15 minutes on the bike.
I stacked together a Low Impact ride, a couple of Pop rides, a Boy Band Countdown Ride, Sweat Steady and finally a cool down.
What is going on with my energy this week?
Tuesday: drained.
Wednesday: completely wiped.
Thursday: apparently ready to ride halfway across Yorkshire.
This recovery from Tough Mudder is strange, but perhaps that is exactly why recording it is worthwhile.
Recovery clearly is not a perfectly straight line. Feeling rough one day does not necessarily mean I am going backwards, just as feeling brilliant the next day probably does not mean I am completely recovered.
The challenge is learning not to overreact to either.
Take the good days when they arrive, respect the bad ones, and keep looking at the bigger picture.
I am on holiday today and have a full day at the tattoo studio ahead of me.
Strangely, sitting around watching films while somebody repeatedly stabs you with needles is exhausting. After a full-day tattoo session I am normally completely wiped out, so there was only one sensible option.
Exercise first.
I would ideally like to get my daily training average up towards two hours, and I knew there was very little chance of wanting to do much after the studio, so the aim this morning was around 90 minutes of stretching and cycling before heading out.
The leg is still giving me some gip, but things are definitely improving. Cycling itself is fine and I am no longer walking with a limp. Sitting can still be uncomfortable and clipping in and out of the bike remains the awkward bit, but compared with Sunday and Monday it is heading firmly in the right direction.
Workout done.
Then it was off for a fancy coffee, a few treats for the studio, and a day of being stabbed.
Fast forward around nine hours…
I’m done.
That was probably the most draining day I have had at the studio.
The chest is definitely a sensitive spot. A very sensitive spot.
I am not entirely sure why I struggled quite so much. Maybe losing another stone since my last session made a difference. Maybe there simply is not much padding over the chest plate. Maybe it was just one of those days.
Whatever the reason, it was tough.
I am really happy with the result though. The chest now looks essentially complete. There is still some colouring in the flowers to finish and a little more work needed on the masks, but that can wait for another session.
And there will definitely be no more exercise today.
I’m wiped out.
This week is supposed to be teaching me about recovery, so perhaps deciding that enough is enough should count as part of the training too.
R&R evening it is.
I’m movied out after spending the day watching films, so mindless youtube will do nicely.
I woke up this morning fully intending to head down to Greenhead Park for parkrun.
But the leg has not fully recovered.
I know I could probably run 5K. I could certainly get myself around the course. But there is a difference between being physically capable of completing something and it actually being a sensible thing to do.
I still suspect the problem is deep bruising rather than a pulled muscle or anything more significant, but with three weeks until my next OCR and some longer walks planned before then, I really do not want to turn a gradually improving problem into a setback simply because I wanted to tick off a parkrun.
So parkrun was abandoned.
Instead, I stacked a collection of Low Impact Peloton rides and decided that some gentle cycling would be a much better option.
Fifteen minutes later…
What’s this?
No energy.
Again.
I have been taking things relatively easy this week, certainly by my normal standards, but suddenly I was struggling to turn the pedals with any enthusiasm at all.
I do not feel ill. I do not particularly ache. I just have nothing in the tank.
Maybe I am coming down with something.
Or maybe, just maybe, two Tough Mudders followed by a week in which I have still managed several substantial cycling sessions means my body is not quite as recovered as my brain would like it to be.
Of course, my immediate reaction was completely sensible.
I decided I at least wanted to keep exercising until my watch gave me its fancy red animation for burning 1,000 calories through exercise.
Because apparently arbitrary numbers generated by a watch are now in charge of my life.
So onwards into another class. Thirty minutes of Low Impact with Bradley.
Nope.
That did not get any easier or any more enjoyable.
I still felt perfectly fine apart from having absolutely no desire or energy to keep going.
Perhaps a shorter class would bring me around?
Onwards into another 20-minute Low Impact ride.
Nope again.
By this point, however, the morning had already made its point.
I have spent much of this week concentrating on whether my leg hurts, whether my muscles feel stiff and whether I can physically complete a workout.
But recovery is clearly more complicated than that.
Sometimes the warning sign is not pain.
Sometimes it is simply having no energy.
And there is probably very little benefit in repeatedly trying to negotiate with your body when it has already given you the answer.
Another lesson learned.
ONE WEEK ON: WHAT DID I LEARN?
The week after Tough Mudder South West has probably taught me more about recovery than I expected.
The first and most encouraging thing is just how much better my muscles coped with South West compared with Yorkshire.
After Yorkshire, I could barely move properly for several days. This time, despite completing both the 15K and 5K on the same day, general muscular soreness was surprisingly limited.
The biggest change between the two events was the amount of stretching and mobility work I had done beforehand, and that is something I will absolutely be carrying forward.
Lesson one: preparation for an event is not just about fitness.
Mobility, stretching and looking after the body before the start line appear to matter enormously.
The second lesson came courtesy of the Hero Walls.
My right leg has been the one persistent problem throughout the week and, although it is steadily improving, it has been a useful reminder that obstacle technique matters.
As I start taking on longer events, I cannot afford to waste energy or pick up avoidable injuries simply because I am attacking obstacles badly.
Lesson two: obstacle efficiency is part of endurance.
And perhaps the biggest lesson came later in the week.
Recovery is not linear.
I felt drained on Tuesday, completely wiped on Wednesday, fantastic on Thursday and then strangely empty again by Saturday.
There is clearly going to be more to recovery than asking whether my legs hurt.
Sleep, energy, cumulative training load, travelling, work and everything else going on around an event all form part of the picture.
That matters when I look ahead to Infinity and World’s Toughest Mudder.
Those challenges are not simply going to require me to become fitter. They are going to require me to become much better at managing myself.
I need to know when I can push harder, when an easy session is enough, and when the smartest training decision is to stop.
That last one might prove to be the hardest.
I like numbers. I like targets. I like closing rings, hitting calorie goals and watching training totals climb.
But the goal is not to win Tuesday.
The goal is to arrive at the start line of World’s Toughest Mudder capable of continuing for hour after hour.
Sometimes that will mean pushing when I would rather stop.
Sometimes, apparently, it will mean stopping when I would rather push.
Endure. Overcome. Make it count.
And occasionally, recover.