LA Marathon 2011 Post-Mortem and Recovery: 3-21-11

Recovery is going pretty well. I took about 70g of protein powder after the race, through many doses across the rest of the day. Today, race day + 1, I took an additional 80g of protein powder. Both days I drank several packets of Emergen-C to keep throwing vitamin-C and other essential vitamins into my body for recovery.
Currently, after the race, what hurts:
1. My left ankle, but after I adjusted it, the pain went away!
2. My left anterior tibialis is sore. Left ankle area on top is sore when I move/bend the foot.
3. My right anterior tibialis is not sore much. Right ankle area on top is sore when i move/bend the foot.
Re: 2 and 3 – I think that the numbness in feet due to cold contributed to this. I felt like I was running on club feet and could not tell how my feet were landing on the ground. This could mean that my foot contact was not optimal and beating up my ankles and the surrounding structures more than normal.
4. Almost no soreness in either hamstring or glutes. I think those 4 Hour Body exercises are working well!
5. Both quads very sore. I think this was exacerbated by the cramping in both quads. I suspect 3 things that caused the cramping:
a. It was a cold day and I was not drinking much, so less electrolyte contribution from my sports drink. I was gel-ing every 45 min. so that was still on my normal schedule. I had electrolyte tablets with me, but didn’t take them until mile 14 after my right quad cramped. By then it was too late. I should have started taking them on my usual schedule, but I was also curious to see if I really needed that much electrolytes, and especially on such a cold day.
b. The cold was driving down my heart rate. I looked at my HR graph from my Garmin 305, and it steadily declined as the day wore on. Some of that was due to my walking, but I could see my HR angling downward even before my first cramping at mile 14.

So I wonder about whether or not less blood flowing through my muscles caused the cramping since they were not getting enough nutrients or electrolytes. Need to look up research on the effect of cold on muscles and cramping.
c. I’m just not strong enough. After I recover, I’m going to start on some suggestions in the 4 Hour Body book from the coach who makes sure his athletes are super strong for running, using lots of deadlifts and similar exercises. I think I’m pretty weak in the quads, and especially if I’ve been working the hams/glutes with the weights/exercises I’ve been doing and they have practically no soreness at all.
5. My right shoulder/pec is very sore. It was getting sore towards the latter half of the race. I suspect that carrying my kid too much had something to do with that. It was taking a lot of my concentration to keep that shoulder/pec from tightening up as I ran.
6. I only slept 4 hours the night before. Every night before that, since daylight savings time started, I have not gotten really good nights of sleep at all. So a whole week of not sleeping enough may have left me at not maximum condition at start of the race.
Lots to think about and work on in the next upcoming months.