Month: October 2016

Back in late August 2014, I started experience pain in my shins. I had been increasing my mileage as I trained for the Thunder Road Half Marathon, and shin splints are usually caused by an increase in mileage. The most common advice I found for shin splints is to take a week off from running. At the time, I felt like I couldn’t afford to take a full week off from running and still run my race at a decent pace. So I looked around some more.

I found the Calf Blowtorch.

The article doesn’t name the exercise (although they do describe it as “magical,” and I have to agree), but I came up with that nickname after trying them once. When I was done, I felt like someone had used a blowtorch on my calves. The pain went away after a few minutes, and there seemed to be no lingering soreness, so I kept doing them daily for a week. After a week, my shin splints were gone.

Every so often, if I start to feel a little bit of pain in my shins, I’ll break out the calf blowtorch exercise. The nice thing about them is that, in theory, if I wait 5-10 minutes, I can go for a run after doing the exercise. (In reality, during the week I’m usually pressed for time because I’m trying to get in a run before work, so I try to do them on a rest day.)

I should throw in the standard disclaimer that I’m not a doctor, and if you still have shin pain even after doing this exercise for a week, you should go see a doctor and find out what’s wrong. But I can say that, as painful as it is, this exercise worked wonders for me, and I’d recommend trying it out. Anything that keeps me running is a good thing.

Well, all of my race reports have been posted. I have one more post with brief summaries of my first 8 races which never got full reports. It’s funny, I wrote that post for the old site a while back, but for some reason never got around to posting it. It still needs some polishing, and of course pictures, but I’ll get it posted this week. Also, this week, I’ll do a write-up on how I’ve dealt with shin splints, the calf blowtorch exercise. I nicknamed it that because it really does feel like someone is using a blowtorch on my calves when I do it. The pain is temporary, though, and it seems to work for me.

I juggled my schedule this week so I could spend some time with my friends Wednesday night. I’m still not sure if my changes were good for my legs, but I did have fun hanging out with my friends.

Dental Update: I had a checkup this week with my dentist, and I’ve got 2 cavities. Bummer. When scheduling my follow-up appointment to get them filled, I chose Tuesday, October 11. I based that on my scheduled meetings at work, but later I looked at my training schedule, and that’s the only Tuesday on my entire training plan where I’m scheduled to have a rest day. I find that amusing.

Weight Check: 161.5, down 1.1 pounds since Friday, September 24. I weighed in before my Sunday run. A 17 mile run can cover up a lot. Last weekend, I drank a few beers, and drank soda while I was driving to and from my parents’ house. This week, I was exhausted most of the time, and so I drank Mountain Dew. I guess I did OK eating, though.

Since I decided on Monday to make the changes to my schedule, I’m going to use the revised schedule in the next section.

Total: 45.56 miles

Originally, I had my workout scheduled for Tuesday, rest days Wednesday and Friday, 7 miles on Thursday, and 5 on Sunday. I took the 12 miles total from Thursday and Sunday, and split them into 3 runs of 4 miles each, and did them on Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. I didn’t want to have two rest days in a row, so I figured this would give me the same number of miles.

The one flaw in this plan that I didn’t realize until it was too late is that it left me with only one rest day for the entire week. I ran 6 days in one week for the 2nd time ever. Oh, and you know how I always add an extra .01 to the end of each run? Well, with the 6th run that ended up being .06 instead of .05 miles added over the week. So my total mileage of 45.56 miles for the week ended up being my highest weekly mileage ever, breaking the old record of 45.55. (This week is actually the peak mileage for my training plan, although I’ve got two more long runs that will be longer than 17 miles.)

I guess I’ll find out next week if I screwed up.

Monday was hot and humid, but it could have been worse. There were torrential downpours in a large part of Charlotte Monday morning, but the rain stopped just a couple of miles north of me. A little bit of rain would have been nice, but I’m pretty sure the amounts that I heard about would have had me trying to get to a treadmill.

Tuesday was the first of my 4 mile runs this week. It was still pretty hot and humid, and my legs felt beat up, but it was only 4 miles, so I could tough it out. I did manage a reverse split, so there’s that.

Wednesday, it was still warmer and more humid than I’d like, although it was probably better than the past two days. I did my workout. It wasn’t too terribly complicated compared to some of the other workouts, but it was long, the longest mid-week workout so far. My splits for the 3 mile segment were 10:20/10:20/10:12, for an average pace of 10:17.3/mile. For the last 3 intervals, 10:11, 10:11, and 9:57. I do like it when I can rally at the end.

Friday, I decided that my legs could use a break, and for the first time since late July, I drove to the Y and got on the treadmill. It’s still mentally excruciating, but physically, it’s easier on my legs. Also, it was 68 and humid outside when I got to the Y, and that’s terrible running weather.

Saturday, I ran 17 miles, and it went fairly well. I always check the 10 day forecast, and it seems like, for the last month, cooler morning temperatures were 3-4 days away, but somehow they never actually got here. Well, Saturday morning it was 55 degrees with low humidity. I was actually a bit worried that I might go out too fast, but luckily my legs were tired/beat up enough that I kept a sane pace. On the last mile, though, I sped up, and finished up with 10:33, which was 54 seconds faster than any previous mile. I’ll take it.

I somehow lost the two band-aids I put on my nipples before my run. Luckily, there was no irritation or bleeding, so I guess they stuck around long enough to prevent any issues.

I went back out there Sunday for 4 miles. I’m still not sure if I should have skipped this run, but I can’t complain about the weather, pretty much the same as Saturday, just a few more clouds. My legs were tired and beat up (Clearly, this isn’t going to change anytime soon), but I managed a reverse split.

Next Week:
Monday: Easy 4
Tuesday: 1.5 mile warm up, 8 x 3:00 at Threshold (10:30/mile) with 3:00 recovery, 1.5 mile cool down
Wednesday: Easy 7
Thursday: Easy 7
Saturday: 3 mile warm up, 4 x 3-mile at Marathon Pace (11:00/mile) with 3:00 recovery, 3 mile cool down
Sunday: Easy 5

Wow. So I guess I only get one rest day this week too. All I can say is, this better get me ready for NYC.