Shins

It's very frustrating to be limited by mechanical factors.

I just completed one week of the 10k FIRST 3plus2 training program. It has been hard but quite empowering. I never knew that I could run such hard workouts. I feel like I am already seeing payoff from this training program.

But....my shins are not quite as happy as my cariovascular system. During my "long" run (6 mi) today, they started hurting quite badly after 2 miles. They kept it up until mile four, costing me a quite slow (9:50min/mi) fourth mile. I was supposed to run 6 miles at 8:18 min/mi pace, and ended up with 8:27 min/mi overall after fairly fast fifth and sixth miles:

First 3 miles in 8:15 min/mi
mile 4 in 9:50 min/mi (34:36)
mile 5 in 7:43 min/mi (42:53)
mile 6 in 7:59 min/mi (50:44)

My shins stopped hurting completed after mile 4, allowing me to run them quite a bit faster. I hate to pull back when I can see that this training program could be great, but I don't want to destroy my body. I'm going to ease up this coming week and just do some easy miles and cross train. Next week I'll do one hard work out and keep doing that for a while until I can up it to two. Right now three hard workouts, while satisfying, are just too much for my legs right now. Boo.

I have also noticed that running faster paces makes my lower back hurt (I think it's sciatica.) Richard says that situps can help with that. We'll see.

So week 1 of this training program involved the following 3 workouts:

1: Track repeats: 8 X 400m with 400m recovery jogs between. Intervals run at 6:52 min/mi pace.

2. Tempo run: 1 mile warm up, 3 miles at 7:48 min/mi pace, 1 mile cool down

3. Long run: 6 miles at 8:18 min/mi. (Actually done at 8:27min/mi overall)

Hard but awesome. Too bad my body doesn't agree.