Catching up AGAIN

I'm back after a short hiatus. I had to put my running shoes on the shelf for 10-ish days due to shin splits or Achilles tendinitis or whatever it was that I had. In the meantime, I rode my bike like a fool.

I did a 17-miler on the 18th

Then a short 12-miler on the 19th

Finally a monster 40-miler on the 21st. I actually think it was around 42 miles, because I forgot to turn my Garmin back on after I made a short water stop. Whoops.

Last night, I picked up on my running schedule again, with a short two-miler. I thought I ran it at a fairly conservative pace until I uploaded my track from my Garmin and found that I ran my fastest two miles ever. Go figure. Anyway, my legs were much, much happier after their running vacation and, aside from the normal twinges here and there, I experienced no real pain or discomfort. When I got home I stretched a bunch and iced both lower legs for 20 minutes. I have a hunch that my leg issues are caused by tight calf muscles, which I can't seem to get rid of no matter how much stretching I do. I think I might start using the heating pad on them before my runs and see if that helps. I've had luck with that method in the past on my hip, maybe it'll work on my calves, too.

I have eight miles on tap for Wednesday. I'm a little bit concerned about this run as it'll be the true test to see if my legs have fully recovered.

Ooh, I almost forgot that I wore my new, fancy heart rate monitor on yesterday's run. My highest heart rate was 181 (going uphill) and my lowest was 153 (downhill). It seemed to hover right around 165-170 on the flats. This information would probably be more useful if I knew
how to interpret the results!