Recovery? Do these work?

I've found myself in this weird routine of running once or twice during the week and riding once or twice on the weekend. The running is more of a pounding on my legs than I remember and biking once a week for 50 miles is well, interesting. I think one ride, relatively tough/long, once a week does little to retain your fitness and a lot to keep you fatigued. It's this mix of...I used to ride over 150-200 miles/week, so sure I can ride 50 miles, but I'm only doing it once a week, so my legs are kind of fried afterward from getting their weekly shock to the system.

With my legs being sore after the runs and my looking to next year where I'm going to some how be a competitive bike racer while training for a half-ironman (don't see how that is going to happen, I mean the being competitive at bike racing when I'm also swimming and running), I explored the option of getting some recovery tights. Cezanne kind of laughed and said she could get me some cheap hospital ones that would probably be better than anything I bought. Maybe she could have, but you know how it goes for cyclist, nothing that is cheap is good???

So last night they came in the mail. I had heard that it would take about 10 minutes the first time to get the recovery tights on. It took me 9 minutes, but I wasn't rushing. Since they have graduated compression, getting them on around your feet/ankles is the hardest part. I was a little hesitant because I didn't want to rip them, but they held up.

So, I was strutting around the house last night in these tights with Cezanne laughing at me (just a little bit). I decided to wear them to bed, just to see if I could sleep in them. I was up at 3am and restless which is not out of the ordinary for me, but my left foot was in pain. The material was really digging into the soft tissue on the outside of my left foot towards the heel. I got out of bed and it was painful to walk. I think this is the opposite of the desired outcome! The rest of my legs felt good though. I still have some tenderness in that area, so I have to figure out what happened and why the material was pinching down so hard. This was something I really wasn't interested in investigating at 3am, I just wanted to take them off.

I did a great group ride last Sunday, led by my teammates Siggy and Nate H. We had about 8-10 folks, which is a good size. It was fun and felt good, but I was definitely hurting on some of the hills and later portions. Here is the ride: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/11308512

Similar ride this Sunday, looking forward to it. Hopefully I'll be able to sneak in an early Saturday morning ride too before heading to work.