July 11, 2006
Progress Report: Week 3
This week I ran about two and a half hours. You'll note that that's markedly down from previous weeks. The day that I ran 37 minutes, I noticed a burning sensation in my shins, just below the knee. In my optimism, I hoped to be able to push through it on the next evening. It didn't work and I had to stop running early the next day. It was about twenty minutes, I didn't bother recording it; I felt defeated.
I have probably developed a mild case of shin splints. Shin splints, as you may or may not know, can be problems in a number of areas. It can be damage in tendons (connective tissue between muscles and bones), they can be muscular problems, or they can be caused by other things. I'm pretty sure that my mild injuries are solely in the muscles. In which case, I'll be able to recover from them after another week of resting or so and hit the pavement again without too much loss in my program.
On another note, I went to the pool today and worked out there for the better part of an hour. I am incredibly tired. It was a good workout but far more intense, muscularly, than running ever has been. I think that I might start taking a day off of running each week to just go to the pool for an hour or two to do a low impact, high energy exercise. It lies somewhere between the cross training that I do and the running, great workout.
Posted by Mendon at July 11, 2006 8:39 PMBack in my college days, a friend of mine was a track runner and had a tendon injury I believe. Her 'healing' routine as prescribed by her trainer was to RUN in the WATER for 45 minutes. This does not involve touching the bottom of the pool. I went with her - it took me about a week to be able to do 45 minutes with her, but dang that was the best shape I was ever in!!
Posted by: Mara at July 12, 2006 5:14 AMDo you have a pool available to you? Swimming is one of the best overall conditioning exercises there is. Sounds like you are keeping up with it. Good job.
Posted by: Ma at July 12, 2006 9:12 AMWhen you get back to running, you might find this site useful:
www.mapmyrun.com
You can plot out your run along a road map and it will tell you how many miles you ran.
Posted by: Hayley at July 12, 2006 4:49 PMRandom comment. lol. I started listening to fashion nugget the other day I had forgotten how much I like Cake! Just thought I'd share that because you always used to sing the Distance and whatnot. :-)
Posted by: Alana at July 14, 2006 5:58 PMThere will come a time in distance running when you want to go faster but you don't seem to be able to breathe enough to do it. Then is when you should lengthen you stride as hard as it will be and try to move your legs only a bit faster. Your lungs will pick up the slack for you. It is not oxygen you need, it is you need to slow your breathing so you don't hyperventilate. When you breathe too fast you wash out the CO2 too much and become alkalotic. When that happens you can;t get the O2 into the muscles to continue for any amount of time worthy of long distancing faster. It is really hard to slow your breathing when you seem hungry for air. So purse your lips and blow through them like whistling.
Take in as much as you want, just blow out or "exhale" thru pursed lips. You oxygenate better and you slow down the CO2 washout a bit. Kepp after it. When you run far enuff long enuff your lungs adjust to the distances and speeds.