Massage night. OOOOO AAAAAAA

Aaaaahhhh, it was massage night again. I consider this an essential element of a training/racing program. Nothing puts a person back together again quite as well as a good sports massage. All those little nagging aches and pains get fixed up. It really helps if the therapist knows their stuff too. Alot will just have you lay down on the table and just do their thing and not like input from the client. I believe the best massages are done on an interactive basis and not just on a 'what hurts' question at the start of the massage. It's your body and you can feel when they are working the muscles if there is something going on there. That's the time to speak up. The massage therapist I see has a pretty good medical background so it helps alot. Often she'll find the problems without me telling her, but it certainly helps her out if she knows things ahead of time. If you do get a good sports massage, I recommend getting it a couple days before you have to race again. If you have to race the following day, make sure you have the bare minimum done. Otherwise, you'll not be as responsive as you'd like to be. It's usually the second day after the massage that you really notice the results of the massage and then you're ready to go out and wreck yourself again. Anyone who races on a weekly basis should definitely consider adding this as a necessary step in training. If you know someone who can do this, great. Otherwise be a bit selective on who you go to see. Talk with them beforehand and you'll be able to get a good handle on if they are capable of doing the job. Also, this is not a do it once and wait til the next time you are really hurting to go back. Many times, it takes a few visits to really start working things out, especially if you continually go back out and beat yourself up again. As I said, it should be a regular part of your training program.