Cursed Realm of the Faceless Ghost

Today I was back up to full speed and full distance. I ran five one-mile repeats at 6:00 with 400m recoveries. I felt fine, except for my lower leg. Although it hasn't felt sore at all for a couple of days, the pain was back almost immediately when I started running. I think I'll make my easy runs "runs" this week and do them on an elliptical, just to let my leg recover. At least the numbness seems to be gone. Or maybe I've just gotten used to it. 

I decided that if I'm going to make this consistent training thing work, I'm going to have to be okay with sometimes counting cross training. 

My lower legs still hurt, so instead of running six miles today I ran three and then finished the balance on the elliptical. I hate that machine. It's not the activity (which is super boring) as much as it is the machine itself. The stride is too short, which I understand that they can't fix because then it would be too long for almost everyone else. But there's no reason that the machine has to have a bar perfectly placed for me to smack my knees into. That's just poor design. 

That was harder than expected. Today's workout called for eight 800m repeats (5:46) followed immediately by six 400m repeats (5:34) with 200m recoveries. I finished the set completely, and I probably could have done a couple more, but I was ready for it to be over by the end. I think that's a good way to finish a workout. 

My lower leg felt better today. There's still some pain, but I was mostly able to forget it while I ran. I'll start on the treadmill tomorrow, and if anything bothers me I'll finish on the elliptical again. But I'm starting to feel pretty good about my chances of being fully recovered by the weekend. 

Six slow miles on the treadmill, which was about as exciting as it sounds. 

Four easy miles at the end of what's been a pretty solid week, by my current standards. My legs have been feeling pretty sore after the  hard workouts earlier this week, so it was nice to shake them out a bit this morning. Tomorrow I'm supposed to run nine. If I do that it will be my highes mileage week in longer than I care to admit. 

Nine miles at the gym this morning.

I got a late start, so I felt worse than I would have liked to, but the longer I stuck with it the better I felt. It was supposed to be an easy run, but with no TV and no Cardio Cinema and no iPod, the idea of nine steady miles was more than I could bear. Basically I ended up surviving four and a half steady miles. Then I cranked up the speed and finished with a reverse progression run. By the end I was doing nine-minute miles. I figured the only way I could win the mental game today was if I knew things were getting easier.

Anyway, I hit all my workouts this week. Awesome.