New update

Wow it's been a while. First things first... FALSE ALARM, FALSE ALARM. All is well (and thank goodness for that!!)

So, back to regular programming. I am currently in the midst of a sloth week - completely unplanned, but it's happening anyway. I ran on Tuesday morning (and pretty fast too actually - 4.8km in 28:33... I really should have gone on another 200m and got my coveted sub-30 minute 5k, but such is life). Today I was supposed to ride to work, and didn't. Monday I was supposed to cross train, and didn't. Tomorrow I am going to run in the morning though. Friday is a scheduled rest day, but I'll try and do something light, because I am feeling a bit slack. Having said that, I am going to make a concerted effort to be kind to myself. I am going through a really, really crap time right now, and putting extra expectations on myself is not helping anyone. Work is a whole new level of stressful, the family is being demanding, and there just aren't enough hours in the day at the moment. Such is life - I'm just going to do the best I can with what I'm facing, and hope for easier and happier times ahead.

Anyway, back to the running. We are now less than 3 weeks out from the HM, and I'm varying between excitement and freaking out. I did really well with my long run of 16km 2 Saturday's ago, including a pretty hilly circuit. But last Saturday's 17.2km was a bit of a disaster, which has dented the confidence a little bit.

It was pretty dismal weather and started raining not long after I set out, which didn't help my mood any. The biggest problem though was the pain in my legs - my right shin in particular. I've had shin splints before in my long distant gymnastics past, and I really don't want to go there again. I've had some soreness in the shins from time to time, but it usually passes pretty quickly as I warm up into the run. This didn't happen on Saturday though, and it just got worse. I eventually stopped about the 6 or 7km mark, and discovered I had a big egg on the side of my shin. I did some self massage and found a spot a bit above the egg which absolutely killed to push on it... so I pushed on it and rubbed it (and swore a lot), and managed to release whatever was causing the problem. Then I resumed the run, and about 3km further along, I was pain free. Weird.

So, by the 10km mark or thereabouts, I found my rhythm and did pretty well for the last 7km. Seriously, a 10km lead-in to the comfortable section? That's ridiculous. Anyway, the final time was 1:50, at an average pace of 9.3km. I have one more long run (19km) this Saturday, then it's taper time and the big race the following weekend. And then 2 weeks after that, I'll be sailing the South Pacific :-)