Saturday: 41 mile bike; 12 mile run; abs

a.m. Bike 41 miles. 2:01. 196w. 85rpm. Followed by 20 min brick run. 9:00min/mi.

p.m. Run 20 minutes. 9:05. Frickin' shins. It's so frustrating. Even if I have to run 3-4x a day, that is what I'll do to get the miles in. (I really don't want to have the surgery, but may have to). I'll try again in a few hours and hopefully they won't flare up.

3rd run of the day. 70minutes. 8.14mi. 8:36min/mi. For this run, I warmed up very, very slowly, thinking that the easier and longer I warm up, the more time my legs have to accommodate to the inevitable muscle expansion and hence the more time there is for the blood to get down to my legs without being restricted. I ran for 4 minutes and then walked for 1 minute at about 9:14-8:57 pace in between walks. I repeated this for the first 30 minutes of the run. It seemed to do the trick. I'll keep doing this strategy. I then ran 10 minutes at 8:06 min/mi and then 30 minutes at 8:00min/mi

Bike Position. I'm going to raise my seat a little and see if that helps with my shins. Right now, my seat height is such that my feet are perfectly parallel to the floor, if not slightly pointing upward at the bottom of my pedal stroke. My theory is that pointing my toes slightly up stresses the muscles around my shins more, increasing their size and strength. I think by biking so much last year, those muscles have gotten too big for the compartments--which is consistent with what the doctor told me. I am going to raise the seat so that my toes are now pointing slightly downwards, which I don't think will stress those muscles as much and prevent them from getting bigger. Hopefully, that will help some and at least prevent those muscles from getting even bigger. Of course, my theory could be complete nonsense.