Treadmill Trotting

After over a week off from running while resting my shin I decided to give running a try last night.

My shin and, actually, my left leg in general still felt "off" but there were no sharp pains and mostly it just felt like things needed to get stretched out.

So I went to the gym and, thankfully, managed to snag a treadmill. Man, it was busy in there last night! I think at one point every single treadmill had someone on it and my gym has A LOT of treadmills.

I walked for about 5 minutes just to get warmed up and then decided to go for the 3-4 miles I had on my schedule.

I also decided that if everything felt okay I'd try for a short tempo run.

For the most part my leg felt okay. A few twinges now and then and most of them were in my calf. In fact, I think the problem might be a tight calf and a tight Achilles. No sharp pains, no buckling feeling. Good signs, right?

I ended up doing 1 mile where I increased the speed every quarter mile from 10 minute/mile to just under 9:00 minute miles. Then I ran 2 miles with speed at 8:57 and short stint at 8:34. My plan had been to finish up with a full mile where I decreased the speed back to 10:00 but my stomach had other ideas.

At about the 5K mark I had to pause and try to get my intestines to stop doing some kind of crazy dance. I made it until the 3.5 mile mark before I couldn't stand it anymore and had to rush off to the facilities. Let's just say I felt pretty drained afterward.

Guess that will teach me to scarf a new-to-me protein bar shortly before running.

I thought about going back to the treadmill and finishing up that last half mile but, in the end, decided I'd done enough and went home. Where I stretched and foam rolled and iced.

After the run my shin felt okay but for some reason the outside of my left foot ached like crazy. Was I favoring my left leg and landing funny while running? I don't know. All I know is that I iced it before bed and it feels okay today.

I also took advantage of being on the treadmill and figured out my cadence. Apparently I run between 170 and 176 steps per minute (a cadence of between 85 and 88), assuming my oxygen starved brain was counting correctly. A quick google search shows me I'm at the lower end of ideal. At least when running on the treadmill. Maybe something I'm learning while doing those intervals on Thursday is actually working?

As for the leg, I'm going to step up my stretching, foam rolling, and icing so that I stay on top of whatever is going on. I think if I can do that I'll be okay.