It's a bright, bright sunshiney day

Well not really. OK. This week has kicked my butt and has been a big downer running-wise. Why do I start like that? Well, everyone knows (or should know) that I am known to be very upbeat and happy. It is a running joke at work (no pun intended) - why the h@ll is Mindi always smiling? But alas, not this week. Well, actually I was pretty darn happy at work, but I have had a tough second week of training. Why, you ask? Let me tell you.

Monday was a rest day and a good day. I have started pilates again and light weights and am feeling a good pain from it - the muscles are being activated again, I am on the road to kissing arse once again.

Tuesday was a bit iffy. For a decent part of the day I did an electronic document review - over a thousand documents re regulatory stuff you don't even want me to begin describing (trust me) - checking for privilege, etc. Hardly glamorous work and by 3:00 I had a wicked headache. 3:30, I had this sharp, mysterious side stitch on my L side. Please tell me how I get a side stitch sitting at my desk all day! Seriously, I could not take in a full breath without pain. 5:45 I realize I forgot my running shoes at home!! Yikes - so I zip home to change then head to the track. We did a nice warm-up (although too short since I had to go home to get my shoes). Then did plyometrics in the grass. Then 4x200 hard, 200 recoveries. Immediately following was a 2 mile tempo run. Idea was to start at 5K pace and speed up. Although that is what the coach prescribed, he has me start at 7:30s and increase, which seemed more appropriate. So I start off (way too fast) and am feeling great. I slowed by the first lap and was hanging strong. Unfortunately by lap 4, I start feeling a stitch on the R side. No big deal, breathe through it - I am not running that fast. Nope. By lap 5 I felt like I had a dagger between my ribs. Just after lap 6, I called it quits. My first official DNF ever. Dammit. I walked it off and ran a very slow cool down feeling like a looser.

Wednesday I was pretty sore - particularly inner thighs which was kind of weird. I did some light stretching but took it easy.

Today I got up at 5:00 am ready to run my prescribed 10 miler. I made it .3 and decided to turn it in - I was way too sore. Again - a big DNF. Not like me. That really sucks.

The moral of the story is: after hard track workouts, run very short and easy on Wednesday am to loosen up the muscles. Sitting behind a desk for 2 days after a hard workout is not good. I felt so much better Wednesday than today and I think if I warmed up my muscles I would have been a lot better off. I don't feel like injury is lurking - just like I let DOMS take over. Hopefully all will be fine tomorrow - but I did not like the way this week went. Lesson learned.

The good news = I am fired up about training again; my husband rocks as always; kids are great and full on the loose for summer; I got my first new client (all mine!) at work regarding a counterfeit claim; and I had a magazine call me to commission me to write an article about branding, protecting trademark rights and avoiding potential infringement liability in a specific niche business community based on a previous article - pretty cool (hahaha even despite my awful word skills in scrabble!!).

Goal for tomorrow = run better than I did today - and longer. :)