Oh, the Smell of Neoprene.....and an unlikely Recovery method

Have you soaked your wetsuit in the tub yet? Well, that totally depends on when your first tri of the year is. If your wetsuit has been sitting in the closet for 6 months, its going to contract and be a real pain in the butt to get on for the first time of the season. So get it out within the week of your first race and soak it in the tub to rehydrate it. Makes getting on a LOT easier.


For me, smell invokes memories, either good, bad or stressful. The smell of neoprene brings back memories of my first triathlon (i have video of me finishing! its hilarious!....and I'm 20 pounds heavier....). I had a great time during that race, but the swim totally stressed me out. All I remember of that swim was the smell of neoprene and entering into a washing machine. Before ANY triathlon, my heart is always going nuts when I smell neoprene. So neoprene = anxiety.

As soon as I pulled my wetsuit out of its mesh bag tonight, I got a whiff of the neoprene. Oh man its getting even MORE real. I heard Lake Pontchartrain's water temp is already @ 70 degrees. That is calming :) Gators anyone? haha! Unless they like to swim in brackish water, I should be gator free.

So after yesterday's efforts, my legs got a bit sore today and continued to get even more sore as the day dragged on. Fortunately they did not get as sore as after the half marathons, but I was feeling it. My recovery method this time?

Go hard.

After the other weekend of riding the 99 miles and no running, I went out and did a pretty good effort on my time trial bike on the following Monday. I noticed at the beginning of the ride that my legs were pretty sore, and by the end of the ride, my legs were nice and loose. I loosened up because I did some hard efforts that opened up the capillaries and forced the blood into the legs. I had no idea if it was a fluke because I didn't run that weekend.

So I tried it again tonight. It worked! The first 10 miles of going easy hurt. The first three 30 second efforts at 350+ watts hurt. But 5 mins later my legs felt AWESOME.

Got in 18.5 miles. Only one more ride left before Sunday!