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!