and we have a connection...

first of major apologies for what was probably my longest hiatus in a while. i finally sucked it up and decided to pay for an internet connection at home so you'll probably be more tired with the volume of posts than anything.

so we've a lot to catch up on.

okay so overall things are good. i have been doing a lot of yoga for cross-training - there's a studio near me that has 7 am classes that i can pretty much roll out of bed and stumble to. i have been having a really hard time with my shin splints - they are really painful. in case you don't know the mechanics of shin splints, the calf muscle is so tight that it pulls the tissue away from the shin bone (tibia) on the front of the leg. when this happens, the bone can absorb more of the impact from running. this can be painful and potentially, lead to stress fractures.

this is my biggest worry, and mine have gotten progressively worse over the last few weeks. so much so, that i e-mailed ramon, who checked me out at practice last wednesday. he grabbed my calf and said "yes, they are very tight". huh. and i had thought that was good ;). he recommended more cross-training and less running, icing after running, stretching my calves 10-15 minutes a day (this is harder than you'd think) and running on soft surfaces when possible.

last wed we had session 2 of the hills, which, once the splints loosened up, was a.o.k. afterwards those of us that have been mooching off of rand for rides, took him out for a burger with a few other peeps and talked strategy and goal times for the brooklyn 1/2 marathon that saturday. typically, i try to avoid thinking about time, but i am trying to become a better runner here, and speed is well, speed. so when cap asked me what time i was going for, instead of saying i wasn't thinking about it (lest i dissappoint myself) i declaired 2 hours and 15 minutes. ha.

i got to that number figuring a little over a 10 minute mile could possibly be doable given my time on the previous saturday's run. we would see.

yoga sessions: 2
april 11 mileage: 4.0
season mileage to date: 108.7

i hate sprints

actually, its a love-hate relationship. when we're doing them, at first i hate them. then i get in a zone, and it actually becomes one of those it-hurts-so-good kinda things.

so last night we did the drill that i hurt myself doing last season. essentially, a coach stands in the middle of the 102nd st transverse. we sprint from one side to the coach, recover to the other side. repeat. until they say stop.

this all went really well for me until we got back to the starting point at 90th street and we had to do squats and lunges. that was *not* fun. or at least i knew it wouldn't be fun today.

and sure enough, every time i get out of my damn chair today i feel like i'm 72 & a half. ow. despite this i'm going to try to run in the morning with one of the girls from work...hopefully the soreness will be gone by then...or i'll really be owing at you.

yesterday's mileage: 4.0*
season mileage to date: 58.5

*estimated not very exactly. will revise in the near future.

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

triumphs and tribulations

after a protein-full dinner last night (a churrascaria, aka "meatfest"), i thought i would wake up ready to kick-it this morning.

not so. i wish i could blame it on the meat hangover, but it was my damn calf again. it was really tight, and i tried to run it off, but, after probably a 1/2 mile or so, and a bit of walking it still wasn't any better. i wanted to push it a little more, but my sister convinced me to just go running the next day - i reluctantly acquiesced.

it was gorgeous out, and we walked down to the manhattan bridge along the water and then cut back up to the east village through chinatown. it was a busy morning, and my sister had never been through there, so it was a good walk. when you look at those streets in a certain way, and its early enough, you can easily imagine you are not in new york. it helped wear away the guilty i-didn't-run-today-feeling i was carrying around.

the triumph of the day is that i surpassed the fundraising minimum of $3800! which is excellent because now, the breakdown of funds changes! now 100% of every single donation goes towards the research and support and amazing things that the society does versus the administrative stuff for fundraising, etc. and a special shout out to my darling sister, who has been supporting me in so many ways from letting me drag her around on city adventures, and being my running buddy, and now it was her donation that brought me over the $3800 threshold. Thanks Kristin, love you.

Cautious or wimpy?

so i got up really early today to go for a run...and was not all that successful. my left calf muscle was aching about two minutes into it, which made me feel like i was favoring my right leg. i stopped and stretched it out (when its warm out, you only stretch after, you don't have to stretch to warm-up), and tried to keep going. m street to connecticut to 17th i think...it still felt hard as a rock. so when i got to the mall, i stopped and walked back.

~sigh~

the walk felt good after a while, but it's the first time i hurt in a way that doesn't feel like good-exercise-sort-of-hurt. i guess it could have been walking around in heels maybe yesterday, but you would think that after two days of rest, that wouldn't happen. depending on what train we catch, i'm going to try to get to the gym or at least try again tonight back home. i'll be upset if i don't do anything today. see you back in nyc.