Mud runs, sprints, new shoes, 5Ks, and training

I can't believe that its been 2 months since the marathon! I've been pretty busy since then. On June 8, I did the Mud Factor run with the bootcamp people from my work gym. It was awesome, scary, and painful! I'm proud of myself for not skipping any obstacles, despite the cement blocks that were my shoes. I came out of it with a nasty scrape and bruises on my knees, and both ankles were out of commission for a full day afterwards (due to the deep mud, or so I'm told). Here are the girls after we finished:

And the damage to my knees:

I haven't pulled the trigger by signing up yet, but we're talking about doing the Gravedigger on Sept 28. This race will hopefully have a lot less mud, but more high obstacles. I did ok with the mud in the mud factor, but I am terrified of heights. One girl said that I was visibly shaking after climbing over the first 15ft-tall A frame. There were 3 A frames: a flat wall with ropes that you climb up, a cargo net over a second one, and then a 70ish degree wall with ropes halfway up that you had to grab to get over (this was the source of my still-scarred knee). I will most likely do the race, but it is the week before the SoS half, so I bought different shoes and I'm going to tape my ankles with KT tape just for some added stability.

A few weeks after the marathon, I started doing sprints on the treadmill every Monday morning with my trainer. They've gone about as I expected:

Week 1: dizzy
Week 2: almost puked
Week 3: horrible cramps
Week 4: almost puked/cramps
Week 5: migraine about an hour after sprints (I think this is coincidental...)
Week 6: NOTHING BAD HAPPENED!!! Finally.

They still suck, but I'm doing better, and we're doing more sprints with less rest time. I've already seen a difference in my speed and 5K time, so they're helping a lot. I'll continue to do them once marathon training starts on the 22nd. I bought a garmin footpod and Wahoo ANT+ adaptor for my iphone so I can measure the actual distance of the sprints on the treadmill (we step off to rest while the treadmill is still going). They're sort of cute, and they'll also help when I do the Choctaw 5K on Labor Day weekend in the land of no GPS/cell signal.

I went to a natural running form clinic at the local running store (Red Coyote). I've been fighting shin splints since March or so. They seem to strike at random, but I can almost always deal with them if I wear my calf sleeves and take ibuprofen before the run. I almost always wear them to sprints, and about half of the time on long runs. Anyway, at the clinic they suggested that the fact that I heel strike is likely the cause of the shin splints. So I've been working on that, mainly by being sure to push my hips forward rather than back (as is my normal habit apparently). I also bought a pair of Brooks PureFlow2 shoes as my next pair of running shoes. I've been gradually transitioning to them-I'll run the first half of my mid-week runs in my glycerins, and then switch to the pureflows for the second half of the run. Last Saturday I ran the last 3 miles of my (fantastic!) 8 mile long run, and it was awesome. I am going to take at least another 2-3 weeks to transition to the new shoes. I'd like to be in them completely by the time I start marathon training on July 22. They're very bright! I would have preferred a blue pair, but this is the only color they had. In retrospect, I guess I could have asked them to order a different color for me.

They also have a bizarre tongue! It's attached to the outer side of the shoe. Very odd.

I am on a 5K kick lately, which is a bit odd since I hate 5Ks. They're too short! But I've been going to the weekly social 5K at Red Coyote, and I'm doing the Sizzling Summer Series of 5Ks. The first one (the Hot 5K) was on June 21. I PR'd! My new 5K PR is 31:44, which beats the 32:14 set in the Putnam City Cancer Classic last November. I went out a bit too fast, and paid for it at the turnaround with some fun abdominal cramps. I need to do some googling to find out why this is happening-I think I read somewhere that over-hydration can be a cause. But I don't want to die of heat stroke, so... idk. But if it weren't for the walking that I had to do because of the cramping, my time would have been under 30 mins, which is one of my goals! Almost there. I may not try to PR on the next 2 races (Hotter on 7/19, and Hottest on 8/16) because of the insane temps that are Oklahoma in July and August. All 3 races are at 8pm on a Friday night.

And, finally, I start marathon training in 20 days! I'm going to run the Rt66 Marathon on Nov 24 (and the Spirit of Survival Half Marathon on Oct 6). I've already put my schedule up by my desk at work, although it is still subject to change. I need to figure out where to add hillwork, because quite a few people have told me that the course is a very hilly one. My trainer says Fridays are a good day, and an online forum suggested doing it during the longer mid-week run on Tuesdays. So I have 3 weeks to figure that out.