ADELANTE!

Well, I have had a solid start to the week, including an amazingly difficult hill/mountain workout on Tuesday that consisted of 4 x @ 800M up a 12% grade. I was completely wasted after the first one, but was strong enough to run well throughout. Not sure if I am going to gain 10-lbs. in my legs from all this uphill running, but it was sweet. I have also had some good recovery runs on some very nice neighborhood courses and this morning ran a fabulous out-and-back 8M'er on a tremendously challenging trail in the Mountain. For the first time in my life, I am loving my surroundings and am considering settling here. It is absolutely gorgeous. I can actually use all my five senses when I run. I have smelled flowers, trees, dirt, nature scents that I forgot existed. I never considered myself a city-boy until now.. now I realize I have only lived in major cities! Boston, Miami, Houston. All major metropolises. I now live amongst the comfort of nature, the comfort of this Mountain, always

And so, I press onto my second week of running since my shin splint dilemma. My shins are still pretty weak, which is disappointing, and so I am still running on a treadmill to lessen the impact and stay off the killer downhills in the area. However, this week I will be mixing in some road running with the treadmill in order to ease myself onto running full-time on the roads and/or Mountain. So, today, Thursday, I ventured onto the roads. Actually, last night I headed to my local running store and picked up a shin splint sleeve, and holy cow, does that thing work! It is so freaking tight however, it is virtually impossible to take off once on, and I may have injured myself in the 10-15 minutes it takes to manipulate it off my shin... Anyway, I have discovered an absolutely great 10K loop. It is the absolute most challenging course I have run yet, but it's not the type of course that is too hard and you can't get into a rhythm, this course was just a perfect mixture of climbs, f

Whew. What's it been, two weeks? Where do I begin? Well, seems like I developed a pretty bad shin splint in my right shin that was weakened by my deer-like approach to training in my new mountainous environment and not working-in enough flat-land training. The stress of the constant up and especially downhills, coupled with my 3-hour drive to Alabama of not using my "cruise-control" stick, caused the injury. This injury stopped me cold. In the meantime, I have been getting treatment from 2:25 Marathoner Robin Rogers of SMIT-Atlanta. Robin has been great. I think the final piece to this puzzle will be ultrasound on the shin itself. However, I did a 2M fartlek this morning on the treadmill with no pain, which was a relief. Other sidenotes: I am in the process of hiring a professional coach. I have researched this individual since I moved into Atlanta and I think we will be a good fit. I am old-school in the regard that I want someone who has "been there, done that"