Quick Update

Well on Monday I went for my first ever bike ride with a road bike, and after 28 miles I simultaneously blew both of my tires! AHHH. But my mom was riding with me and was able to ride home and pick me up with the car. Then later on that day I went on a ride with my dad and uncle and my uncle blew a tire after hitting a nail! I never realized there was so much waiting biking.

But then today I went for a real running run in between job interviews. It was only 2.5 miles but I was able to make it a quasi tempo run. First mile 9:30, Second mile 7:10. Since I FINALLY got the pool ready to go I might take easy tomorrow and do some water running.

I aquired a road bike today!

My uncle Erv who is majorly into road biking lent me his old bike for a while. It rides great from the little 300m trek I went on today, and I'm excited to get out onto the road. Also I finished preparing our pool today, so I can go watter running tomorrow too! Its all so exciting that I get to start working out again.

So I completely failed on my last couple weeks of the spring training. I still benefited greatly from it, and based on my 5k time, I should be training for a sub 3:00 marathon! Things are looking up for me!

Another day of rest

I rested again today. Unfortunately our pool is not yet ready for people, but hopefully tommorow I can run laps in it for about 30-45 min. I'm just really dying to get out and start running like I am used to.

On a side note I figured out today while playing a little basketball, I can feel my shins hurt as I go UP when jumping, and not so much when I land. I always figured it to be the opposite, but I guess when you are running, all the pain kinda melts into one. Perhaps I can learn to take off a little more gently rather then trying to land softer like I have been. If nothing else, its just one more thing to try.

No I have not abandoned you

I've been busy moving, graduating, registring for grad school, all of this fun stuff. I have also not been running much as I keep having a couple shin splint episodes during every day activities, so I rule on the safe side. On sat though I did run a 5k with my mom. I was doing good, and my wind felt fine keeping up with the leaders by about the half way mark. (I don't know exactly where it was because there were NO MARKERS on the course). Then I got some shin splints and finished in 20:40. Oh well, not bad I guess.

But now for the summer I am living with my parents who have a pool, so perhaps I will be doing some water running soon! I just really want to start training again!

No shoes? No problem!

Today I went for a .85 mile jog in my bare feet! I did not go on the grass somewhere, but in the street. Some people sitting outside yelled out to me "You forgot your shoes". Another lady walking her dog asked me, "Does it hurt". And really, it does not. I've read a lot about the benefits of how your running form improves dramatically, as well as your ability to improve the strength of your foot, ankle, and lower legs.

I really liked this jog and I think that i might just consider doing a barefoot run every week like this just for the heck of it. In fact, most elite athletes do a barefoot warm up and cool down for every workout they do (in shoes).

Tomorrow I will try and do 10x400 intervals! woo hoo!

I gotta keep the tempo!

I went out for my first real run in a couple days. Sunday I went about .5 miles before I decided to head back due to shin pain. But today I went out not knowing what I would be in store for. I figured if it came down to it, running around the block would not be the worst thing in the world. But if I felt good I might keep going, and perhaps I would even do some speed work.

Well I felt great, and during the early stages of my tempo run, I had to hold myself back. My fastest mile split was exactly 6:00, and I have to say that I am pleased. I also felt NO pain today. But that is not going to stop me from being cautious. Tommorow even if I feel good I am going to take a day off just to make sure that I get plenty of rest. (plus I don't want to ruin myself for my 5k this Friday)

This also reminds me that I finally picked a marathon. I will be running the Twin Cities Marathon up here in Minneapolis where I will be attending graduate school. Yay.

Time to step back a touch

During my recovery run today I started to feel some pain in my shins again, as well as some shin pain after my workout. So I have decided to cut back some of my training miles for a tad. So I am not going to run tommrow, take it as a rest day. Then on Sunday I am supposed to run 10 miles, but perhaps I will just run 7 or so. Then monday full out rest again etc.

During the days of rest I think I will take the time I was going to run, and instead use it to do strength excercises for my shins. I found a good reference for them at this site: http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/0161.htm

They usually have lots of good advice for anybody with any running questions. Well that is it for tonight.

Hot Fartlek Coming through!

As of Saturday I will be a college graduate. yay. Now what does a man who is supposed to have all this intelligence do? Decides that when it is 90 degrees outside and sunny, running a 45min fartlek at 3:00pm would be a good idea. My diploma should be ripped up.

It was sunny, so I wore sunscreen. I forgot that sometimes sunscreen block your sweat pores. I got real hot real fast. Eventually I was able to use the sweat from my head to wipe off my sunblock, allowing me to sweat. Then As I was running, and running hard at times because this was a fartlek, I started to feel dizzy and get tunnel vision. Immediately alarm bells started ringing in my head, so I stopped by a nearby tree and did some stretching for a couple min. I then ran over to my fraternities house and got some water.

Feeling better I was able to finish off my fartlek in a manner befitting a fartlek, but for the most part I think that this day was wasted as far as speed training goes. But on the plus side I re-learned a couple important lessons about hot weather running. DON'T DO IT! There was a reason I was doing all my running at night this past week, it was because running in hot weather sucks.

Late night runs

Since it is starting to get a bit too warm around noontime for my cold addapted Wisconsin blood, I have taken to the late night runs. Its kinda nice with few cars, cool weather, and neat views of the stars. But when you find yourself on a stree with poor lighting, it can be a real pain to run. I stepped in a pothole today and it scared me real bad, luckly nothing was twisted or what not. (Not that that would matter, since my ankel tendons are so stretched. I played many years of volleyball my ankes have been twisted so many times that I can just keep running.)

The run itself was only a quick 2.8 miler to help my body recovery from yesterdays interval session. I then did a full 20min of stretching and then 20min of icing of my legs when I got back. I think I am in pretty good shape for my Fartlek tommrow. (A 45min one).

Another thing I wish I could do is have two of my toes chopped off at the tip. The toe next to my big toe is my biggest toe, and since this is freakish, shoe makers assume that that one is smaller then the big toe. So that one gets rubbed and rubbed against the front of the shoe and almsot every other week I perform my own little surgerys on it to keep the pain only minor. So if any of you know of somebody who is real accurate with a butcher knife let me know :)

Spooky Intervals at the track.

Yes, I am back. I did 16x200 intervals with 200m jogs in between. So running to and from the track plus the intervals gave me about 7.3 miles for the day. I ran my intervals late at night, and it was spooky at the track. When I got there I saw another guy running, and as he was coming around the corner I took off, and 200m later I looked for him, and he was gone. Then my next lap a bird seeming came out of nowhere from the track and flew right in front of my face. The strange thing is that I was looking right at the spot that it was coming from. Then the next lap I was looking for the bird again, and again it came out of nowhere. All the while there is lightning looming on the horizon. Then the next lap I noticed, or I think I noticed that a stack of hurdles moved closer to my lane. Finally for the rest of my run every time I ran past this one light it always turned off. So I don't know what was going on exactly, but since I have a hint of superstition, I thanked my little "ghost" after leaving the track and thanked him for letting me run and not killing me.

I got back to my apartment just before the storm hit, and while I like running in the rain, this would have been much, especially with the lightning. I then drank my slim fast high protein shake to build up my muscles, (my legs were burning at the end of the run, it felt great). Then I took another ice bath and wrote my spooky blog.

Yesterday Rest, Today a Recovery Run

I realized yesterday that my body was a bit sore, especially in my hamstrings and knees, so I just iced them and took a rest day. Better safe than sorry. (Plus its finals week for me and I have a lot to get done, so it was not as agonizing a decision for me to make)

Then today I was scheduled to do a 3 mile recovery run and strength training, and I AM FINALLY BACK ON HAL'S SCHEDULE!!!! I feels very good to type that. I ran without much of an incident. I stopped a couple times briefly to massage my shins, but as long as I was running slow I was great. Then today I took another ice bath, and now my legs feel great!

Tomorrow is supposed to be a 16x200 at the track. I'll try to do that.

And on a personal note, I have gotten rejected from all but one grad schools I applied to, but I got great news today that the University of Minnesota (which rejected me) will allow me into their physics program if I agree to pay for my schooling! So I am going to be attending grad school! Yay!

Today was my long run I guess.

I have this habit of going out for a run, thinking that I will be out for say, 4 miles. Then 8.5 miles later I am thinking, wow, that was great. Well that happened to me today, and I did this, only because there was ZERO pain in my body. I was running and felt great. I was even running kinda fast. the 8.5 was done in 1:10:00.

Once I got back to my apartment I did some thorough stretching and then iced both my shins and knees just to make sure that I was not going to be in pain later. I guess all I can say is wow, and I am glad that I can finally run, run far, and run fast.

I cut loose today!

I started my run pretty slow, not too fast, but I was not going very slow either, in about the 9:00 min mile range. I was running on grass to keep the impact down, and I think this has been helping. But after about half a mile I realized that my body was feeling great. So I guess yesterday's rest day was a good thing.

I then started to speed it up a little bit. By the time I reached my first mile my stopwatch said 8:00. I felt I could do better. Next split was 7:32. Then I started to head back into the wind, and damn it was windy, the flags were almost horizontal and I was running right into it. And I'll be damned if I was going to put up a slower split, this had been turned into an impromptu temp run. The split for mile 3 was 7:11. Ok, I was getting bit tired, but I had to run about another half mile before I held up. By this time I was out of the wind, and cruised in to my apartment at 4 miles, with the last split of 7:59.

Overall it was a good run, I did run pretty hard, and considering the wind I think I did pretty good. I have lost some from the last 5k I ran, but I don't think it would take too much to get it back. On a side note I was wearing my heart rate monitor today, and it registered an average HR of 163, so yea. I was moving!

We'll see how I fell tomorrow, but I think I might do some LSD of about 5 miles, and then get ready for 10 on Sunday. I hope, hope, hope, hope that I am ready to go and resume my program at 100%!

2.6 Miles Plus 1 Day Rest

Yesterday I ran a short 2.6 miles, and I started to feel sore in my shins, so I cut my run short. Today then I rested up, figuring that yes I have been making progress, but I could probably use some rest. After this week I will only have 4 more weeks of pure speed training and I want to make sure that I get some of that in, and enter the full out marathon training full strength. So I am just going to take it easy. R.I.C.E

Step down day

Yesterday I ran two miles, and it was cake. Pace was slow, about 9:27, but I felt pretty good again. Earlier in the day my knee was feeling a tad on the sore side for no real apparent reason, so I wore one of my knee braces. After the run I felt a little more pain in that knee. I am beginning to suspect that the design of that brace is bad for me, so i will not wear it for a while and see what happens. Also I just wanted to say that last Saturday was the last dance performance I will probably ever give, so I am done dancing on stage. Time to focus on running.

Today I will go out and run 3 maybe 4 miles and see what I have going on. Then do plenty of stretching and icing.

It feels great to be running again!