Running Chick

I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve had enough of this schizophrenic weather we’ve been having. Tuesday, I was out running in a t-shirt and shorts. Yesterday it started to rain, then snow, and today it looks like this:

Since my cupboards are bare, I get to clean this mess off my car and go to the grocery store so we don’t die of starvation.

Scout had been enjoying daily romps on the deck. Now all she can do is stand in the doorway and sniff.

She is not pleased.

Anyway, after ten days off from running and a lot of cross training on the bike trainer, I hit the road again on Tuesday with high hopes. Unfortunately, as is typical with me, I overdid it with the weights the night before and my hamstrings and calves were in high revolt.  I got a very, very slow two miles done and walked the last mile back to my house. That was the day it was almost 70 degrees out, so I had a very pleasant walk home and became one with my ice packs.

I felt much better on Thursday and had an pain-free 3 mile run after work.

I was supposed to run 10 miles on Saturday, but I’m trying to cut back on my mileage while I’m working my way through the shin pain, so I decided five miles would be sufficient. Then I looked outside and saw what is typically knows as a “wintery mix” – an evil combination of freezing rain, ice pellets and snow. A sane person probably would have stayed inside, but I figured I should probably just get out there because you never know what sort of conditions you’re going to have on race day, especially in this neck of the woods, so off I went. I ended up being completely soaked from head to toe, but I did have pretty good run, and had the opportunity of break in these babies:

They’re called Brooks Ravenna and Brooks claims they’re mid way between a neutral shoe (for people who don’t have any pronation issues) and a stability shoe (for people who over-pronate – ankles roll inward).  I’ve been custom fitted by five different running stores and each time, I’ve been deemed either neutral or an over-pronator and I’ve never had the same analysis two times in a row.  So, I can only assume that I’m probably square in the middle of those two classes.  Neutral shoes don’t provide me with enough support and stability shoes give me too much support, so after much reading, I decided on the Ravennas. Plus, they were only like $4, can’t beat that! Before you start emailing me for the coupon code, I got a gift card from Josh for Christmas and then found a 10% off coupon online.  Since they were last year’s model, they were on also super sale. I do loves a bargain.

Well, alrighty, that’s the report for this week. Looking at the week ahead, the plan is to keep on icing, stretching, drugging and massaging and build my mileage back up to normal. Go me.