test #2 (aka mile repeats)

so tonight we did the test we were supposed to do last week, which is basically to almost-sprint a mile, then recover for .7, repeat twice for a total of about 5.1 miles, three of which was sprinted.

the weather was with us tonight, and it was warm again. it's so much easier when its warm out. handsome was early too so we had a chance to catch up. we passed off the spirit tee, got an announcement (for everyone that was there saturday, a repeat) that our coach christine is preggers, and one of the other girls got engaged. cheers all around.

this dumb shin splint - oh, forgot to ice it! - is really bugging me. it takes too too long to loosen up for my liking. i was nervous that the sprinting because of all the impact would really aggrivatae the shin splint. i decided on the warm up to go for one really good one with the group, and see how it felt. i also had forgotten my watch, which was so annoying because this was an important watch practice.

christine said that we shouldn't feel like we were going to puke at the end, but pretty close. oh goody.

my first run was hard...but fast (for me of course). after about 1/2 way, i wasn't sure i was going to make it. i was heavy breathing like crazy. it hurt. but i ran a whole mile in 8 minutes and 3 seconds. that is more than a minute faster than then the first time! and i did think that i might throw up. so i must have done it right.

on the second, i tried to go at a fast but moderate pace, but i was without watch, so i don't know how fast it was. if i had to guess, i'd say around 8:40, 8:45. and my shin was aching. i decided after the 2nd one to ask the christine how i should be dealing with my shin splint. she basically said that the *most* important thing for training at this point is the long runs, and so the thing to be careful of is anything that could jeapordize them. so if i felt like sprinting another loop was going to hurt me more than benefit, i should just call it.

and so i did. another girl with shin splints also said that at this point, if you do enough cardio each week, you won't loose the endurance built up so far, so i feel a little more comfortable substituting cross training for a few runs until this little bugger is gone. i'll try to get up and do a little run tomorrow morning, since i did a shortie tonight.

okay, g'night people!

today's mileage: 3.4
total mileage: 210.0