Week 5... 25% of the way there!

It's now week five and I'm 1/4 of the way through my "journey"! I can't believe I've stuck with my program for this long! I'm very proud of myself because there were a few times when I wanted to just kick a rock and say FORGET IT! But I've been able to stay focused and have come a long way in the past few weeks.

Week 5 had its ups and downs. It started well with a solid run. I felt good, my legs weren't in pain and I was able to kick up the pace a bit (which left me winded at the end, but it was good). In the middle of the week I had a light cross training day just keep my legs strong with a run the following day... and that's when the trouble hit. My shins, again, tightened up around 1.25 miles into the run and i had to stop! SOOOOO frustrating. It's kind of funny, before this, I would look at people running along the side of the road and say to myself either " they're crazy, its too damn hot to be out here running" or "wow, look how motivated they are". Now I find myself cursing them for being able to run with out nagging pain in their shins (or at least it appears they have no pain) because I want to be out there too! With the run cut short, I dragged myself home to ice down and look to that weekends long run.

Saturday morning came and I was up and at 'em by 8am. I started to stretch around 9:00am and was ready to go by 9:30am. I met up with Andrew and we set out on our long run.... which went remarkably well. No pain in the shins whatsoever and I was able to complete our 6mile run (although my legs felt like jelly afterward). It was very rewarding but at the same time baffling. Why am I able to run 6 miles one day and barely 2 another. I can't spot any differences in my warm up routine, so I really don't understand what's going on. It's very weird.

I'm now at the point where, at least for me, I'm running some serious miles. This week's goal is to hit 8 miles on the long run. INSANE! Keep your fingers crossed that I make it through :o) And don't forget... race day is September 6th, so mark your calendars. I'm going to officially register next weekend and then there's no turning back!

Week 4 a.k.a. HELL

So as you can tell from the title of this entry, week 4 was awful. I'd begun to have some intense tightening and pain in my shin (this started last week and gradually increased) and as a result was unable to finish my run on Monday. In all honesty, it felt like my shin was about to detach from my leg and this time, I cried. Yes, I cried on the side of the road with all the cars whizzing by... but that's ok. Needless to say, I had to take it easy this week. Instead of running on Wednesday, I did an hour on the stationary bike so that my legs would stay strong. I also spent some time icing and heating my shin in order to relieve the pain. Thursday, I did a short 2 mile run on the treadmill at about a 12:30 minute pace... still leg pain! I pushed through it, but was feeling very depressed about potentially having to shorten or cancel my long run on Saturday. In the meantime, I'd been doing some research online about how to relieve my shin pain and what might be causing it. Let me tell you, the internet can be overwhelming when trying to self diagnose. I found about 25 different potential troubles and ailments that might be causing my problem. Ultimately, I attributed it to my bad feet, which leads to a bad stride and also weak shins. I found an exercise that is supposed to help strengthen the shins and have been doing that everyday, twice a day. You basically use your toe as a "pen" and write out the alphabet. Pretty easy, and I can do it while I'm watching TV or sitting at my desk. Eventually, Saturday morning came along and prior to the run, I did about 30 minutes of stretching and applied a hot towel to my shin in order to warm it up and stretch it out. I don't know if it was the warm towel, the ABC exercise or the attempt to correct my stride, but I was able to finish the whole run (a little shy of 5 miles) and my leg felt pretty decent.

I feel like I'm starting to get back on track and hopefully this rough patch is over. It was beginning to get really frustrated watching all the other runners in my neighborhood bound about like gazelles while I was struggling with shin pain! Looking forward to the upcoming week and putting in some good mileage.

Week 3

Week 3 really put me to the test. Overall, I felt like this was a bad training week and on more than one occasion almost cried. I think my body finally caught on to what I was trying to make it do and basically staged a mutiny. Through out the week, my knees were killer sore and my shin... well let's just say my shin and I are not on speaking terms right now! The frozen peas in my freezer have also become my new best friend...

This week, I had runs on Monday, Wednesday and Friday with a short (1 Mile) speed run on Thursday morning. All three days I ran a little less than 5 miles but again, this week was just hard. I am now beginning to realize the "mental element" that goes along with distance running. At this point, I know that physically I can run 5 miles without stopping... but I've gotten to points in my run where I feel like I just want to stop. I mean really, who would know if I walked a few blocks in between, right? Well this is where I literally have to start talking to myself (and out loud sometimes) and convince me to push past the temporary aches and keep moving. It actually must look pretty funny to the passers by, who hear me practically yelling at myself to buck up and get through this! I can only imagine...

Not a whole lot of new stuff to report this week. I'm getting into my groove and at this point, I'm just trying to add mileage during each run. Later on, I will focus more on speed and trying to get my pace up.

Until next time...