ARA = Against Runners' Advice

I am sure you have heard or read the term AMA, which means "against medical advice".  Today's run was completed ARA... "against runners' advice".  I posted on a few different running forums on Facebook today about my dilemma... to train or not to train.  The majority of the responses said that it was unwise to keep running with shin splints, including one response from the amazing SBS (one of the authors of Train Like a Mother), someone whose words I found very difficult to ignore.  Here was her reply to me: 

"Marcie, first off, WOW: 2:00 is a fantastic first half-marathon (or ANY number half!)! Second, maybe I am being too conservative here (this is SBS, and I hang out a lot with Dim), but I am not sure training for a half-marathon is a wise move with shin splints. I think you should rest and let your ailment heal itself. It's easy to let enthusiasm get the better of us, but think long term... Just my 2-cents."

OK, so after I came down from cloud nine from her awesome compliment about my half, I really did consider what she was saying.  I even looked to see if there were any halfs in November... thinking, heck, I could take a month off, cross-train, and start to train next month instead.  I found one that is only about 30 minutes away... but I still ran tonight.  "WHY?" you are probably thinking.  "Why on earth would you run?"  I suppose because I actually feel better when I run. I am talking zero pain. The pain comes from sitting around, doing nothing.  It causes my muscles to tighten up.  I also wanted to prove to myself that I could indeed run two days in a row.  And I did.  And it was excellent.  

I did modify the scheduled run from the TLAM: Own It plan, but just slightly.  It called for a 1 mile warm-up, 2 miles at tempo pace with a quarter-mile recovery between, and a 1 mile cool down (total of 4.25 miles).  Instead, I did a 1 mile warm-up, 1 mile at tempo pace, and 1 mile cool down (total of 3 miles).  I pretty much rocked it:

 

My tempo pace is around 8:30, so I actually went too fast, but that was mostly from picking it up during the final 0.2 of the mile.  The hardest part was the mile cool-down.  Typically after my tempo runs I just walk a half mile or so to cool down.  I had trouble running slowly after pushing it for that middle mile.  But by the end I got myself down to where I wanted to be (10:15-10:30 pace).  That being said, I think I should be going even slower for both my warm-up and my cool-down.  That is my goal for the next week: to work on going easier when I am supposed to run easy.  Hold me accountable, please!  (If anyone is reading this, that is LOL)

When I got home, I stretched, iced, and then my hubby and I put my older kids to bed.  As I was preparing my ice bath, I checked the current weather (so this was a good 20+ minutes after I had finished my run, at around 10 PM):

Oh my... the dew point is the big thing.  73 is quite close to 75, which if you recall is where fast running gets pretty much impossible.  Seeing this made me even more proud of tonight's run.  I was so sweaty and hot... oh yes, I took a picture for you:

Such a beautiful glow I have, haha!

It's late and I need to hit the sack, but I did want to share two other activities that I did today.  Both were workouts I found on Youtube.  The first is a general strength routine, and the second is a core workout for runners.  Neither were very long (took me a little over 30 min total, and that was because I had to rewatch some of the exercises to make sure I was doing them correctly), and neither were very difficult, but I think they were good workouts.  I also found a great site through Google that outlines some good strength training for runners.  I am going to spend some more time reading it over and perhaps base my at-home cross-training on some of the suggestions.  

Tomorrow is a rest day!  I do plan on doing the final workout for the push-up challenge, though.  Kind of ready for the challenge to be over...