:D

I've been sweating my tweaked right leg. It feels like shin splints, and I have a couple suspects. Regardless, the season's final Fleet Feet Sunset Run got rid of some of my worries, and I'm feeling more confident for next sunday's halfie in San Jose.

It's gonna be tough. Finishing at a reasonable pace is gonna be a struggle. But at least I feel confident that I'll be doing it sans-injury. The plan for this week is to chill out some, baby my leg a bit and make sure I go into the race feeling 100%. I think that's the best I can hope for, and then tough it out where I'm missing cardio.

Again, I hope to god it's a cool morning. If it's warm and sunny, it's gonna be a long, long race.

Having said all that, it's time to start thinking about the Las Vegas Rock 'n' Roll Half Marathon in December. The original plan was to build up a base working towards San Jose, then build off that and work on speed for Vegas. I hope to start with ~15 mile weeks and keep going from there. Hopefully by Vegas I'll have quite a few long runs under my belt, and everything will be trucking along smoothly.

I do believe my little barefooting thing exacerbated my leg issue, so I'm gonna hold off on any more of that for the time being. If I feel amazing in November, maybe I'll sneak a few more barefoot runs in. There are a few other culprits, but I believe the barefooting didn't help. I have to have more miles under my belt to be able to do that regularly.

If all goes well, I also plan on incorporating some strength training and other conditioning into the mix. Ski season is coming up, and I wanna have my quads, core and hammies ready to hit the slopes.

Good times.

Photo courtesy joysaphine on Flickr.