Races Like a Girl

Haven’t posted much of late. It’s been very, very busy on the work front. I’ve been continuing to nurse my shin splint. I took four days off last week after limping through a mile.

During the hiatus I continued to ice, stretch and strengthen. It seems to have helped. On Wednesday morning I did the first of three 22 mile training runs. Inside on the treadmill, unfortunately. It snowed on already icy streets overnight on Tuesday. Thank god for podcasts, since I’d otherwise go insane running inside for close to four hours.

I finished up the last few miles of the run at my best attempt at marathon pace. I couldn’t hold that pace without going up to about 90% max heart rate, though, which worries me a bit. I need to be able to run that pace at around 86% consistently to be able to make it through 26 miles. So, while I know I’m becoming fitter in terms of my muscles, I’m still worried that I’m not fit enough in terms of lactate threshold to run the pace I want to in late March. I’ve got around seven weeks left until then, so I’ll keep at it.

I run a half marathon a week from tomorrow, which I’m really looking forward to. I’m not sure how I’ll run it yet. I may try to run the thing at marathon pace. Or I may try to race it, which would have me going about 20 seconds per mile fast than MP. What I want to run and what I can run are, unfortunately, two separate things. It may turn out that I’ll be lucky to run it at MP. We’ll see how I feel…

Filed under: training |