Week -12, Day 1

Scheduled for Week -12, Monday: OFF.
No way, man. I sucked too badly last week. And my shin was acting up yesterday, so I feel the (counter-intuitive) need to keep running to stretch it back out after aggravating my shin and ankle on the tennis court last Saturday.

Actual for Week -12, Monday: 2.7 in 28:10.
I SUCK. I was so horribly slow this morning; it was utterly depressing. Between the shin pain and the excessive humidity (even at 6:30 AM), I was definitely moving slowly. I knew it. And I didn't like it. Still, I'm trying to be careful not to cross that line between pushing myself in training and pushing myself into injury that could sideline me completely from my marathon training efforts. I know everyone has bad days, and I know that I'm still relatively new (and slow) at this. But it's runs like these (and the one yesterday) that definitely make me question how the !@#$ I am going to run 26.2 miles when I can barely hack 3 some days. I know, I know. The weather will be less humid, I'll have been training, I've done 13 before, stop whining. Blah blah. If I hadn't actually run a few half-marathons before, I wouldn't believe that I could do it. Thank God that I have; it's a constant reminder that I CAN do this if I train seriously and stay focused. I just hope the God-foresaken shin splints go away again; I thought I'd finally lost them back in April!

Coming up next: 4 miles.
Will do. Hopefully the humidity is down a bit in the morning (and fingers crossed that it's not thundering and lightning again). Gonna head to bed early tonight to make sure I leave myself plenty of time and, hopefully, energy.