The Week Ahead: Debate Edition!

Just kidding. The last thing I'm going to do is start filling up this space with more junk about the Presidential Election. Ugh.

At any rate, last week's training went well overall and I was really pleased with how my 10 miler came out on Saturday afternoon. I wrote up semi-detailed notes in my Running Ahead log, so check that out if it's of interest. Basically, the biggest improvement came from the nearly 2 hour nap I took before going for the run. Conclusion: More sleep means better runs. Duh.

The one down note came actually after my run yesterday. I went for a short 3 mile run just to see how my legs felt, etc. During the run everything felt OK. Legs weren't all that tired, but I felt slow, even though my watch said otherwise.

But afterward, I had a very slight amount of discomfort on what I think is the top of my tibia, on the outside of my right leg. It's not the knee. It's not in the joint (i.e. runner's knee or something like that). It's not on the side of the knee (i.e. not ITB syndrome). It's not down my sin along the tibia (i.e. not shin splints). It feels like a slight bruise on the top of the tibia. Not bad...maybe 2 out of 10 in pain, and it's only intermittent.
I have to really tap the top of the tibia hard to feel any discomfort otherwise (i.e. it's not tender to the touch). There's no discoloration or swelling.


So yeah, best I can tell is it's a slight bruise and a gentle warning signal from my body to take it a bit easier. I iced it a bit last night before bed and it feels better today (less frequent discomfort). Today is a rest day no matter what, so I'm going to use that to my advantage and then see how it feels tomorrow (Tuesday) before going for an easy run. I may just be extra careful and wait until Wednesday if I have any lingering doubts and discomfort.

Regardless, I think it best to scale back my long run this weekend. I had thought about going 11 miles, but instead I'll postpone that a week and maybe do 7 or 8 instead. I'm not training for any big race coming up, so there's no sense in being overly aggressive with something that I think will go away in another day or so. And maybe throwing in an extra rest day wouldn't be a bad idea.

For right now, the week's schedule looks like:

Monday: off
Tuesday: easy 5 miles
Wednesday: hill repeats 5 by ~400m
Thursday: off
Friday: easy 5 miles
Saturday: easy 4 miles
Sunday: long run 7-8 miles

This will probably change as the week goes on, mostly likely if I end up scrapping the speed work this week or moving it later to Thursday, etc.