A Lesson From Last Year

This week his been interesting. When I was running a few weeks ago, I noticed a familiar feeling in my shins. It didn’t make any sense because I’ve been super active this summer, have incorporated additional sports, yoga, stretching, and haven’t been going crazy with the speed work YET. I did everything in my power to prevent them.  But my shin splints started coming back.  For anyone who didn’t know me last year, I melted down when I got shin splints, denied their existence, and made it ten times worse by running with excruciating pain. I look back and wonder who that crazy person was. I guess I was under a lot of pressure (that I put on myself), had just moved, and didn’t yet know if I was going to get into Boston. It was the perfect crazy storm.  I could feel that tightness, the discomfort, THAT feeling.  Instead of denying their existence and having a total meltdown disguised as a total freak out (or the other way around, I’m not sure) like I did last year, I decided to take a preemptive strike against the bastards and STOP RUNNING. This occurred before my legs had pain while running and before it got past the point of being able to fix it, like last year.  Note: Denial when it comes to injury doesn’t work, it just messes up your race! Anyhoo, my ten mile run on Friday, that included some nice pickups by the way, was the last big run for a few weeks. My shins don’t hurt when I’m running, but I knew it was coming if I didn’t do something about it.  My marathon is in January, so I’m in a position where I can afford to take the time off, especially since I’ve got the swimming and biking to do.

I had a run scheduled for Tuesday, so I thought it would be the best course of action was to borrow my sister’s gym and get in some elliptical work.

Fun, fun!

Thanks, sis, gotta love the guest policy!! I emailed my coach with my plan, and will let the chips fall as they may. I also went to see my chiropractor, who basically said I was a hot mess and all out of sorts. IF having one leg a little shorter than the other before the adjustment is out of sorts….then I guess he’s right.  He reminded me that running marathons, half marathons, and endurance triathlons wasn’t normal. He said that running THREE miles was normal. Not ten. THREE.  My brain didn’t really compute that and I got sort of confused, but I really tried to understand.  I think that means that I need to see him on a more regular basis….

Here we go again!

So I’ve got plenty to do to keep busy….and since I sort of mentioned swimming….

Getting it done.

I needed to get this done, just to prove to myself how goofy I was being last week. I swam 1.25 miles in the pool, no pushing off, no wetsuit, no salt water buoyancy, nothing. I did stop to change pools from the old lady water aerobic pool to the lap pool, and boy, that was refreshing. I felt good when I was done, wasn’t out of breath, and a am now confident that in my race conditions, whatever they are, I CAN do the swim portion of my half iron. Silly me, silly, silly me for thinking otherwise.

Anyway, that’s what’s going on with me this week.  Almost the same old thing, just a little tweak and hoping the splints shove off into the far distant plants of another solar system….

I hope that if any of you are anxiously awaiting word from the BAA, you get the news you want. I was there waiting last year and it was a time I will never forget, and a feeling I’d prefer to not have again. Until I got the email I wanted and about drove into the ditch, but that’s another story.