A Glimmer

Wow.... it's been so long since I've written a blog where I'm not whining and moping about illness and injury that I hardly know where to begin! Still shaking off the last bits of this respiratory infection, but feeling leaps and bounds better than I did earlier in the week.

I headed back to the gym this morning and hopped on the treaddy. Again, I'm trying to be realistic about things and not set my expectations too high while at the same time being able to feel good about what I accomplished in my workout. I was very cognizant of how my calf would feel today. I did Bruce's spinning class yesterday and it was giving me some trouble when I had the tension on the bike set fairly high. I started out the run conservatively and did more messing with the incline than I did with the speed. Another one of my pet theories has to do with the paucity of my hill work of any kind in recent months. Maybe it's totally unrelated, but who knows. Things felt pretty good, calf wise. I definitely noticed that my lungs still feel a bit raw, but that is improving too.

Wednesday I ran 3.5 at just under a nine minute pace and that felt like a lot of work. I had a feeling that I'd feel better today and I did. Still, though, I didn't want to push it too much. I kept the pace right around 9 minute miles for the first mile and a half, two miles... again, playing with the incline for a few minutes here and there. It was work, but nothing felt too bad and I was glad to note that my calf was feeling just fine.

In the end, I wound up doing 4.75 in 41:53 and I feel hopeful that things will continue to get better from here. I'm going to try to be smart about it thought and ease back into things to hopefully ensure that I'll be in decent shape by the time spring rolls around.

And, by the way, I switched back to my old sneakers for Wednesday and today's run (buggars gave me a wicked blood blister!). I can't say that has really anything to do with my calf feeling better, but maybe it does. These injury things are almost always a mystery to me, but I'm willing to try any combination of witch craft or superstition to ward off the injury fairies. Good thing I ordered a new pair yesterday.... and they're Periwinkle!!!