5km race vs. 30km race

Tomorrow is the around the bay race in Hamilton. I decided last October, after having a good season of running one 5k, two 8k's, four or five 10k's, one 14k, and one half marathon, that I would try and get ready for a full marathon. A friend, Ken, coached me and helped me to improve my times last year, then pointed me in the direction of Arthur Lydiard's coaching. I have also been following the Lydiard talk that has been spreading on sites such as letsrun.com and Mike's blog.

The Lydiard way makes a lot of sense to me and I have tried following it to my own abilities of mileage build up. In January I started to pack on the largest amount of clicks that I have ever done. Honestly, I never thought that I would be running so much. I am making it sound like a lot, for some it's not enough and for others it's too much. The month total was about 425km. The last month has been extremely difficult for me.

I have been having a lot of trouble with my shins. I have gone to see a podiatrist and a sports medicine doctor. The doctor prescribed a bone scan and told me I have tenoperiostitis, a type of shin splint. It is an overuse injury. Both the podiatrist and the sports medicine doctor agree that I need to learn to judge how much I can do without having pain. The parts they don't agree on are running mechanics and bio-mechanincs. I'll leave that for the days to come ahead. Some days I feel great, like I can just fly, others I feel sore and they hurt a lot (very inflamed).

In January, I knew I was in pain, but could not judge when to stop. So I kept on running. I thought "I have had shin splints before, it will just go way like it has in the past". However, in the past I have had rest periods and cross training. I couldn't stop, that would be silly because I need to build up my mileage. I was silly because I didn't take more rest when needed. Hopefully, I will have a better understanding during my next conditioning phase.

This week I have been running really easy and very few clicks (miles), using ice and Ibuprofin, stretching, hot/cold water on my legs and self massage. Making sure that I am prepared as best as I can. My legs are feeling good. A very small amount of tightness remains in my right calve.

Yesterday I had to follow up on a decision that was made (or forced upon me due to the injury) in the past 2 weeks; listen to the doctor's, my friends, my wife and my brain or my heart. Run the 5k or run the 30k? The brain won. I will run the 5k and hopefuly run another PB as well.

todays training:
Lite cross-training for 20 minutes so that I can stretch.