  Since it has been a few days, I figured I'll catch everyone up to speed with a quick post tonight about the last two workouts before I pass out for the night. I postponed my Monday run to the evening for one reason or another. (Sorry, when it's this late and I've been doing software design for the past 3 days, my mind kind of goes. ) I also cut my run back in the anticipation of a spontaneous Tuesday speed and hill workout with a no-show-Mark and Consuelo. Either way, I actually only ran for about 20 minutes on Monday. Only a runner will understand why I cut my run that short so the only thing I will say is that everything was fine and I am learning the limits of my body more everyday. I do remember my calves and shins still hurting a fair amount on my run, but it wasn't debilitating by any stretch of the imagination.
On Tuesday night, I met Consuelo at the indoor track at UC for some planned speedwork. Since I didn't hear from Mark (who had the original idea for speedwork), Consuelo and I kind of made up our own speed workout. We ran (and I mean ran! ) 4 sets of 400m with a walking 200m in between each set. We started way too fast and soon learned that sprinting would only wear us out.
We set a good pace on the second and third sets and I got to watch Consuelo test his physical limits as he sprinted the last 200m of our final 400m set. Truth be told, my shins and calves were seizing up dramatically after each set. My lower legs hurt the worst on Tuesday after those 400m sets. Regardless of the pain, I moved on in my workout to my hillwork (or stairwork? ) on the stairclimbers.
Consuelo joined me for about 15 minutes but I continued on for 30 minutes on the stairclimber. My lower legs hurt, as usual, at first but the pain began to subside as I climbed further up flights of stairs (188 in all). By the end of the workout, the pain was back to a dull ache that I have felt in the past week or so after runs. Since then, I have stayed on the ibuprofen to reduce the swelling. It seems to have improved things. I will still probably maintain my distance and medium runs during the week but I might swap my other runs with cross training on the ellipticals and stair climber and all that jazz. We'll see. 
