Recovery?

    Burning the candle on both ends and the middle seems to have caught up with me. This last weekend I expended more energy than I would have doing back to back triathlons with a trail run and weight training thrown in for good measure. Yes, I had a good run saturday evening after hauling fire hose all day, and a good swim on monday that loosened and worked stiff shoulder and arm muscles. Last night though I felt as if I had hit the wall. I wanted to put some treadmill miles on my newly acquired Merrell Pace Gloves (thriftstore find, new for the shocking price of $12 for a total win!). It felt as if I could not get my muscles warmed up. I felt sluggish, leaden, slow. I did manage 3.5 miles of my 1 minute walk/slow jog, 1 minute sprint routine, but it was arduous. I told myself a number of times that I should just stop and switch to yoga or pilates, but I soldiered on. I finished with 40 minutes of leg work, which also felt like I was working a lot harder than normal. Today my muscles are pleasantly sore, so I know I did manage to get in a decent workout despite the fact that it felt like pulling teeth.
    Thinking it over, I realized that I should probably be taking a few Recovery days. Not only have I been tired, I am also ravenously hungry. I feel like a bottomless pit. Despite my desire to shovel anything and everything into my gaping maw I am staying steadfast with good nutrition, just a bit more of it than usual. I do not do Taper or Recovery very well, at all. I do not like taking downtime. But this has been an interesting lesson; work Body ridiculously hard and you have to let it have some rest if you want to continue performing at your best, and not risk injury and/or burnout. True, I do not plan on taking a week off and do nothing. I have drill tonight and we will be pulling hose again, I shall swim tomorrow, and strength train friday and saturday. But I will take it a bit easy, maybe spend more time stretching, walking, and being gentle with my body.
    Looking ahead I have 3 more months of Academy, meaning very little downtime. I have 6 months to train for my first half-Ironman, and need to get my running miles up to par. This does not give me much slack time for rest and recovery. I think that taking a few days off from running now will let me train with better energy next week. I will build my speed and stamina, I must, there is no getting past the fact that I have to build miles, build my base. A few days now will likely pay dividends later.