Today was my final hill repeat of the spring according to Hal, and he took me out with a bang. I was to do 10 of them. And oh boy, for as much as I like the challenge of hill repeats, I am very glad to be finished. I guess some of it does have to do with the hill I run. Its a cement sidewalk which is not always very forgiving on the bones, the hill is fairly steep, and runs up the middle of a valley. This creates large gusts of winds that blow down it, and right into my face as I run up it. And to top things off, there is a highway overpass that seemto channel the wind even more as I reach the top. It was tough, but damn it I did it!
Aside from today being my last hill repeat, it was also WARM and SUNNY! So for the first time this year, I got to take off my shirt, put on some sunblock, and go running. I really like the feeling of having the sun on my back as I run, it just feels good. Plus the tan I end up getting is not half bad either. It really feels like summer is starting to come after a very wicked winter!
One down side to today was some real bad cramping I had in my calf today. This I believe stemmed from a slight cramp I started to get Sunday and even Monday. Then today the cramp got to be very bad and even though I was able to run my repeats pretty fine, I did have to walk the last .5 miles back home. Not a terrible thing, but OK.
Then while I was walking through Target with my girlfriend, I started to get shin splints :(
I am going to try and take care of them just like I did before, and I might even skip tommorow's recovery run and replace it with some biking or perhaps some walking/slow jogging. We'll see but just when I though I was back on track...nope.
But I am still optimistic that perhaps this episode is attributed mostly to my calf muscle and not the same one that was troubling me earlier in my training.
