Walk in the Park

This hasn’t been the best week of training for me and I am feeling out of sorts. Honestly, I feel like I am hardly doing anything ever since I started to train for the VT100. I am following my coaches training plan, but the schedule is light compared to what I was doing when I was training for Ironman. I think I am going to have to tell him to give me some more workouts just so I can keep my body in even balance. I am craving the workload and don’t feel right without it. To top it off, I haven’t been able to get to the gym at lunch to do strength training. I can feel my muscles atrophying and withering away. I keep bringing my workout clothes to work in the hopes that I will be able to go. I suppose it doesn’t help that I took a day off from training this week. I decided on Wednesday that I was going to blow off my swim workout. I kind of felt like I needed a mental break. Usually when I feel like this, I call my coach who almost always tells me to go ahead and try to do something, even though I don’t feel like it. This time though he told me not to worry about it, since it was just a swim workout which is being used strictly for recovery. At that moment I was relieved and glad to be able to just go home. As it turned out however, I got a phone call at exactly 5:30pm which caused me to stay late. I would have missed my swim workout anyway. Call it providence that this workout wasn’t meant to be. Since I took a day off I Wednesday, I was hoping for a good run Thursday morning. This was not to be. My shins were very achy and my body just didn’t feel like running. I absolutely hate when that happens. As usual I was the further distance into my run away from home when I knew I was going to have to slow down and walk. I know that sometimes this just happens. I try not to get upset over it as there is nothing I can really do. Sometimes my body just doesn’t want to run. I consoled myself with the fact that later that morning I was going to see a doctor that would give me cortisone shots in my painful shins. I looked forward to getting some relief to this nasty chronic condition and trying for another run in the evening. The cortisone shots are painless. I took a couple of pictures of the needle being inserted into my leg for your viewing pleasure. As I left the office, I could feel the warmth of the cortisone spreading along the tissues. I looked forward to running later that evening. I got home from work early for a change, relaxed a bit and then got dressed in my running clothes. I was eager to try out my new cortisone filled legs. While the pain wasn’t completely gone, the discomfit was greatly diminished. I ran a decent 4 miles around Prospect Park, so that combined with the mileage from this morning gave me 8 miles on the day. I didn’t feel like I ran 8 miles and I was tempted to do 8 alone in the evening, but I tempered myself and listened to my coach who told me not to push it too hard. It wasn’t just the cortisone that made this runs better, it’s just that sometimes I don’t have it in the morning, but I do later in the day. I guess it’s my body warming up and waking up as the day moved on. Today was another light workout day as far as I am concerned. Just a one hour spin on my bike which I did in my basement while watching TV. It was nothing special and really not even worth writing about; so I won’t. This weekend will be a real test to see how my legs are doing. I am running 6 on Saturday, but on Sunday I am doing the Manhattan Half Marathon, which I will warm up for by running to Central Park from my house in Brooklyn. This should give me around 20 miles for the day. If I am going to have any shot at the VT100, I am going to need to start banging out 20 milers like they are a walk in the park.