shin-splint, defeated!

that might be a little too strong but hey, creative license right?

so as i've said, this was certainly not the most successful week as far as training goes. i don't know if it is getting used to the new job, general business, fall malaise, or what but day after day i could not get my butt outside/to the gym to train. the only good thing about not running this week was that my shin-split seems to have retreated. i noticed yesterday when i took the first tentative step down my stairs and for the first time in a month, it didn't hurt. i can't say that i'm sorry to see it go. i'm still icing just in case.

and then i managed to make today's run much harder than it needed to be with a series of Bad Decisions.

1. staying out until 3:45 am thursday morning, given it's my 2nd week of work at syrup. i had solid reasons to be out (the scots were in town, gt treated me to dinner, abbi's b-day/i'm-going-to-mexico-farewell party), but it was still dumb because...
2. no nap on friday. after strugging through the day on 4 hours of sleep, i couldn't leave work at a reasonable hour on friday because syrup had some peeps over to the office. i didn't want to skip the first social event of course, and then there was a necessary trip to brooklyn for my friend lauren's birthday party. skipping was not an option, esp. since she slaved away on my birthday helping me bbq prep.
3. 3 beers, no dinner. we had snacks at the party, and i had maybe 3 mouthfulls of whatever. the beers made me more sleepy than drunk, but duh not eating the night before a long run? plain old dumb.
4. no music because i forgot to charge my ipod.

i was ridiculously tired this morning when i woke up to eat - i did my typical have-some-cereal-at-6-and-then-go-back-to-bed. did i mention too that we are now starting at 8 instead of 8:30 because the new season has begun? gosh, i've been running for a long time. i woke up the 2nd time with time to get the train to the park...and then opted for another 30 minutes of sleep and taking a cab. laZY. it was *so* very worth it though. i even debated skipping practice, but knew the guilt would be overwhelming and it eventually got me out of bed.

i was a little late, and it was cold, but once i was kind of awake i was looking forward to running sans shin splint. we had to do anywhere from 16-18 miles. ramon said if you're not feeling it, you could even do less but that it was now really important to listen to what's going on with our bodies because we could always go long tomorrow. charlotte was going to have to run a race in the middle of our run (so she can qualify for the 07 nyc marathon) so i was extra sad i didn't have my ipod. we were going to have to split up after 5 miles or so, and the thought of running 11 on my own made me want to throw up.

fortunately for me (although not for him) handsome is battling the same it band issue that drew is. he's not as bad off, and can run, but it's very painful and so ended up running with us today. now send *him* some good vibes, because being injured completely sucks. so the three of us ran for 5 miles, char split off back at 72 to go run the race, and handsome & i ran 12 together. i think even though we were going slower than handsome's usual pace, the starting pace (where i'm usually extra extra slow) was a little faster than where i usually am. i was nervous about this at first but figured it wasn't a bad time to see since i didn't have high hopes for the run anyway given how tired i was.

it was good to catch up and handsome is funny so he's an entertaining running partner for sure. he decided to call it at 12 and go talk to our coach, which was very very smart, given what i know about it bands. so then i only had to do 4 with no music and no company, which was feasable.

except i totally ran out of gas. it's really what it felt like. by the time i got to the top of the hill after demps turned at 72nd st, i was exhausted. i wasn't sore, or out of breath, i just had next to no energy. those 4 miles were *so* slow. i really felt like i was never going to get to the end at points, but i just tried to people watch and deal with it. one more goo and some water leftover from the race, and i was feeling okay but not great.

i ended up finishing right on track for time, which probably meant the first 12 were faster than the last 4 but that's okay by me. the only thing that hurt on me were my feet because i still need new shoes and we were doing big distances on pavement for the first time in a while. and despite the last 4 miles, considering the Bad Decisions, i felt like i did okay. but i'm considering all this "lessons learned" and i'm determined to be very strict for the rest of the month.

because that's all there is to go. one. month. of. training.

i'll save that freakout for another post.

today's mileage: 16.0
total mileage: 266.5