I Hurt!!!

I have no idea what's going on right now. Last week after the race my shins and right calf are starting to really hurt. I feel like it shouldn't be from over-training. My training schedule has been having long runs on the weekend with a short run during the week. I haven't knocked up my mileage nor have I increased days. Oh, that's right, I did increase my days. Last weekend I ran both days as bricks and was really getting worked on the run.

Either way, I need to get this figured out because I was finally making some headway on my run and I don't want to lose the progress now. So the question is "what do I do?" Either I go through the pain and hope I don't get a stress fracture, or I back off and lose some running fitness. I'm leaning toward backing off, but it's so hard to take mentally. I still want to get out there and work hard to make progress towards my goal, but I don't want to take one step forward only to take two backwards.

The more I think about it the more logical it becomes I need to rest. Especially since last weekend I had a hard time sleeping and have been really sluggish this week. Might need to take my week off a little early. Stupid block training schedule!

Tough One

This week has been pretty tough for me mentally and physically. I had a race on Saturday and got 3rd in my age group. I felt pretty good about the result but thought I could do a little bit better. I trained right through the race, so it wasn't going to be pretty, so I guess I should be pleased.

The training for the last two weeks has been tough and continuing. I haven't had a day off yet in this new block. That means i'm at 14 straight days and I'm starting to get strung out. Today after a 2.5 hour ride I had a short 35 minute run. It went pretty well overall, but towards the end I was struggling to keep a smiling face. My emotions were starting to get the best of me and I really started to struggle with things.

The point of this post is for me to bitch apparently. I might need to get a day off in here soon, so I don't crack...

Wheelset

My dream bike is ready and rarin to go! I went and picked up my wheelset on Saturday but just rode the bike this morning. It was slightly breezy this morning and afternoon when I got out on my rides, but the wheelset even handled well (fairly well anyways) in crosswinds. The greatest part was that I only made it 2 blocks from my house when I got a flat! Ridiculous. Then I was trying to figure out how to use the extender for the valve... anyways, it took me a while to change a flat this time. I am glad it happened then than at a race, though.

There was a huge difference on the flats between these and the training wheels. Plus, they rolled so much better and were insanely smooth.

I planned on getting a couple of flat rides today to really test 'em out on the flats, but ended up doing some hilly rides with a few others. It was a ton of fun! Plus, both rides worked me over. I had a hard run yesterday and got worked at that too. I felt great about the pace and made some improvements on my 10 mile pace. I have my running partner to thank for that, though.

Other than the new bike and some good workouts this last week, life has been pretty good. Work was a little stressful last week but overall pretty good. It was noted to me by a friend that he thought I might not like my job. I quickly said I loved it! I come on here and rant sometimes so the negative does tend to come out at times. But that also means the great things come out also. More to the point: I love my job. I've been meeting some great people around here and have been loving the area too. No complaints coming from me!

Hope life is well for everyone else too!