So That Was February...

2  months down, 66 days to go! How did the shortest month of the year go? Well lets just say I'm glad it's short and I'm glad it's over! It started off well enough, the weather was actually warming up a bit and it was looking like spring was almost here. Then one dark and Tuesday morning I was at the indoor track all geared up and looking forward to my half mile repeats. They had become a nice ritual and the feeling of accomplishment that accompanied me throughout the course of the day was pretty awesome. About half way through  my warm-up I started noticing my left shin was feeling tight and somewhat sore. "No worries" I told myself, it's just a little sore from the weekend runs is all. So I stretched out and while I stretched I noticed it was progressing from somewhat tight and sore to an actual pain. Grrr. So I jogged an extra lap as an extended warm-up and it seemed to loosen up. "Score" I thought. So I started my repeats and didn't notice the pain in the straights so much, maybe a tingle. In the turns on the other hand I could definitely feel more than a tingle. Not cool! While at work that day I started to notice that if I was crouched down in a squatting position (which lately has been necessary at work more frequently) F me the pain in the shin is 10 times worse than it had been that morning! Well I certainly found a way to get the job done without crouching down! Now my mind was trying to think of what it could be. I came up with two most likely culprits. Not excited about either but praying for one over the other. I decided it was most likely shin splints (please oh please let it be shin splints!) or a stress fracture beginning... I've had both before (stress fractures were in both feet in high school so slightly different). Luckily Wednesday is an off day anyway so Tuesday and Wed. I wore my compression socks for some time at night and iced the hell out of em! I jogged a little Thursday but could still feel a sharp pain in the front of my shin. I decided at this time that some rest was in order. So I took a couple days off and then resumed running again the following Mon. This time on the treadmill though. Much to my enjoyment I only noticed the tight feeling for the first half mile or so and then it was gone. It came back a little a couple hours later but I took the fact that it didn't hurt while running as a good sign. I decided to take some time off from the indoor track and opted to do my repeats on the treadmill, thus avoiding the almost constant left hand turns that make up half of the track. I'm beginning to think the two things may be related since it's only that inside leg that has been troublesome. I decided to up it on the treadmill from half repeats to full mile repeats. They went great and running them on the treadmill was almost entirely pain free which was a good sign. again I took some days off and rocked out the compression socks and kept up with the icing. I returned to the roads Monday night for 4 1/4 miles and then mile repeats again on the treadmill last night. I felt pretty good on both runs and haven't noticed to much discomfort anymore so hopefully things are getting back on track!

With the extra recovery days and the short month my mileage was down considerably from January but here's the numbers from February anyway.

Miles Ran - 72

Longest run - 10.10

Highest Weekly Mileage - 28

Races - goose egg

Treadmill Runs - 4

Current Shoe - Brooks Glycerine 7 (to be updated this week...also a good possible cause for the shin pain)

Most Listened to Pandora Station - Zac Brown Band

Looking Forward to the Most - St. Patty's Day and Spring!!!!!!

Upcoming Race - Shamrock 5k 3/19/11

Days til Marathon Numero Dos - 66