February 9th, Friday
“Put another nickel in the bank.”
Another MacGivneyism (RIP )
Today’s training session was scheduled to be a run. It began on a negative note. As I walkedtoward the beach to begin my run, I felt a significant discomfort in the area of my shin on my right leg. I was at a loss to figure out the cause since I had not run for two days. My first thought was shin splints, but it doesn’t seem as if I have been running enough miles to cause shin splints. The sharp pain occurred with each impact. So, I decided to do a longer non-impact warm-up in the hopes that the discomfort would decrease as I drew more blood to the area. But that plan was only marginally successful. Still determined to accomplish something on the day, I entered the beach, found the softer sand and began to trudge along very slowly still experiencing quite a bit of discomfort. Eventually I discovered that the tracks created by the cars that ride the beach were invitingly soft and flat. Running in these tracks I experienced less discomfort as the time went by. Ultimately I managed to stay in motion for 59 minutes including warm-up. All of it was slow with mile times around 12 minutes. I stopped running at the one hour mark not because of any aerobic discomfort but for fear of causing further damage to my leg. I actually finished the run with a few 50 stride pickups. I then walked the 16 blocks home. The messages from my body told me that despite the slow pace of the workout I had worked very hard. I suppose running in loose sand takes quite a bit of toll. I guess I can say is that I salvaged something out of a potentially disastrous day. I now have two days to rest my legs and hope that the unexplained pain will find a way to resolve itself. The last two nights I have slept like a log which indicates to me that I have been putting some demanding work on my body.