When things start splitting at the seams

That week didn’t go as planned…  The antibiotics created more havoc than I anticipated, it was hot as hell and my shin flared up.

A week ago I was a little off my workout and thought it could have been the antibiotics, on Thursday it was confirmed when I was wayyy off.  We were doing 1600m, 1200m and 800m repeats on the XC course on the hottest day ever (35C broke records for July 21).  The first 1600m repeat was a little struggle but not uncommon for the first interval.  And then my repeats just got way too slow for the effort I was putting forth.  After doing a 1200m at a slower pace than my slow-ass mile I decided to stop the madness and just run easy.  Turns out that antibiotics drastically slow the renal system (liquid waste) which makes hydration a real challenge.

Friday was my first day sans antibiotics and I was excited to get back on track.  Halfway through my morning run (20km) my shin started to get sore in the same spot as last year in my 1/2 marathon (two days off to clear it up).  I played it smart and took the rest of the day off and decided not to run Saturday morning after prodding it and feeling pain.  Whenever I mention this shin injury people assume it’s shin splints.  I’ve had shin splints before but this is a tendon injury just above my ankle, probably from too much dorsi flexion upon heel strike. I missed the long-run with the guys and plunked myself on the stationary bike and watched the time trial at Le Tour.  On Sunday I managed to get in a solid run and today I did my workout alone in the afternoon.  I wanted to run easy and test it out this morning instead of getting out there with the guys and realizing far into the workout that it wasn’t ready.

No marathon build-up comes without walls and I just have to deal with them.  The first week was good, the second not so much but having still run over 100 miles and one workout it wasn’t all that bad.  I just can’t have many more like that if I want to accomplish my goals this fall, which is really to be competitive at STWM. There are still 12 weeks to go with many more kilometres and workouts on the horizon.

Lots of punches in the news this past week and they came from skinny distance athletes.  I read that Baala and Mekhissi will not receive their appearance money from the meet.  That seems fair enough but it is kind of ironic that one of the reasons athletes get appearance fees is to create awareness for the event, and the only highlights from the meet I saw on TSN were of the fight.  I guess it might be argued that they gave bad press to the meet.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAYv8hKQhv8]

And Contador gave it to a spectator who was all up in his grill, that doctor had it coming.