Run me Tender

I'm trying to kill some time at work because it's Friday and my boss is working from home today (woohoo!). I've also gotten caught up on all the tasks that are due this week, and have hit that Friday afternoon lull where you're really just interested in going home and enjoying a few days away from the office.

To pass some of the time, I thought I would post an entry. I ran yesterday morning and did another five miles. I felt good during the run and didn't encounter any real problems until later in the afternoon when my right shin started to ache; a sure sign of shin splints. I could feel that my foot strike was a bit off yesterday morning, as the ball of my right foot was hurting for the first 2 miles or so. It eventually went away as I concentrated on getting a more square (squarer? that doesn't sound right) heel strike, which would correct the weird foot movement. However, I think that problem put a lot of unusual stress on my shin, causing the tenderness.

It was tender the rest of the day and in the middle of the workday I wished I had an ice pack at work I could use to help the inflammation. I did ice it twice last night and took some painkillers, which helped a lot. This morning the pain is gone, which is good news and leads me to believe that this was a minor case that I should monitor in the future. To be safe, I didn't run this morning and took the whole day off to rest up for tomorrow's race. That, some more icing tonight after we get to my parents' house, and a conscious effort to correct this occasional pronation problem should help treat the shin splints. Oh, and I also need to stretch much more effectively, as I think this contributed to the problem. Tomorrow I'll dedicate 10 minutes before the race to stretching and warming up. This is perhaps the weakest part of my running routine, as at 6 AM I'm not at all interested in taking time to stretch and need to get going to stay on schedule for work. But to prevent a more serious injury I'll have to start stretching more actively.

Since I forgot to take our digital camera with me to the National Half Marathon (although Annie did get one or two pics of me after the race, which I will put up once I get around to it), I'm going to make a concerted effort to take the camera with me tomorrow morning to take pictures before and after the race. My hope is to have some pics from each of my races this season.

And with that, I'm off to kill the rest of my day before leaving relatively early at 5:30 so we can head out for WV by 6:30.