Week 3 (in)complete, Week 4 (really) complete

It appears I forgot to update last week. I know you've all been waiting on baited breath.

Week 3 started out rough. Later in the day after my Week 2 long run, my shins started to really hurt, even while I was sitting down. So, I skipped my Sunday run altogether, and still took Monday off.

Then I ran 2 miles Tuesday, 2 miles Wednesday (and skipped speed training), 3 miles Thursday, and 3 miles Friday.

My legs were doing pretty well, so I tried to get back on schedule at that point. I did my scheduled 6 miler on Saturday, and 3 miles on Sunday. Only minor pain.

So, I decided to attempt the regular Week 4 schedule, which was as follows:
Sunday: 3 miles (which I did, as you saw above)
Monday: off (also had no trouble with this)
Wednesday: speed work (had to skip this to go to a friend's guitar recital, but did a really hella hard 5-mile treadmill hill workout in the morning instead)
Thursday: off
Friday: 3 miles (did it on the treadmill)
Saturday: 8 miles (did it outside at about an 11-minute pace)

I'm happy to report that I did everything with almost no complaints from my shins. I felt some little tiny twinges now and then, but I've been icing after each workout and not feeling anything between workouts. I may just have managed to conquer this bout of shin splints.

So, I'm back on track and feeling great! I'm going to try to get some kind of hill workout in each week to prepare myself for the River Bank Run, which I've heard is really hilly. The treadmill workout I did on Wednesday was this:
-Run easy for 10 minutes. ("Easy" for me on a treadmill usually means a 10-minute mile)
-Run 90 seconds at 3% grade. Recover for 3 minutes. Repeat once.
-Run 60 seconds at 5% grade. Recover for 2 minutes. Repeat once.
-Run 30 seconds at 7% grade. Recover for 1 minute. Repeat once.
-Run 10 minutes easy.

I did it with two minor adjustments: After the last hill, I had to slow my speed to about 5.5 for a few minutes, and I ran more like 13 minutes at the end to make it a total of 5 miles. It was super hard, but I sort of liked it. It was a good substitute for speed work.

I'm feeling really good, not only with my shins, but also aerobically in general. Though I was kind of tired at the end of 8 miles, I felt like I had a couple more miles left in me if I needed them. (I met my friend Kim on the running path -- she was on an 18-mile run. Oy.)

Three other notes of interest:
1. I took the plunge and registered for the marathon. Ack! It's on 10/10/10 -- I simultaneously fear it and look forward to it.
2. I bought a Wii and Wii Fit Plus, and plan on using it to do strength training and yoga on my days off from running and hopefully some other times, too.
3. It's almost March, and as soon as the weather warms, I'm planning on buying a bike and biking to work once or twice a week. Both this and the yoga and strength training should make me less injury prone this year.

So, good news all around. Here's the plan for this week:
Sunday: 3 miles (did this outside, but no idea how fast, since I didn't take my watch)
Monday: off running, do Wii Fit!
Tuesday: 4 miles
Wednesday: speed training
Thursday: off running, do Wii Fit!
Friday: 3 miles
Saturday: 7 miles

That doesn't look bad. The next week, however, is much harder...

Miles on my 2150s: 51
Miles on my foundations: 42