Balaclava? Baklava?

So, yesterday I worked overtime in the morning and when I got home, I felt not so good.  Not sick, but not good.  So I laid down for a nap.  I figured I'd nap for an hour and a half, but when that time frame came to pass, I was still feeling blah, so I slept for another hour.  I felt better, but at that point, it was sunset and about to be dark.  So, no run yesterday.  I rescheduled yesterday's run for this morning, right before meeting up with my friend Chris for coffee and yakking.  Well, I woke up late and texted Chris.  I decided we would go ahead and meet up and I would run later in the afternoon.  Well, true to form, he and I yakked for about 2 hours.  At that point, I needed to do my grocery shopping and then start getting ready for my trainer workout.  Guess I would be running post trainer workout, then.

Chris and I had met up at the Starbuck's in Target, which is where I was going to do my grocery shopping.  I was hoping to buy something I mentioned the other day and called a "neck cowl."  Well, they didn't have said "neck cowl."  So, after I got home, I decided I would leave early and go to Academy on my way to workout with Samy.  Got to Academy and when I couldn't find it on my own, I approached a staff member and described what I was looking for.  She curtly replied they were all sold out of those items and then promptly went back to what she was doing.  Nice to meet you too.  Anyway, I left and headed over to Gander Mtn.  Again, I couldn't find what I was looking for on my own, so I found a very helpful and very friendly staff member and described what I was looking for.  She took me to a display of something called "SunThing" which was exactly what I was looking for.  And it's not called a "neck cowl," it's called a balaclava. 

So, I got myself suited up for a cold weather run with my new balaclava and headed out the door.  I wore the balaclava over my face as pictured for the first 3/4 of a mile and then pulled it down so it was just covering my cheeks, chin and neck.  It made me super aware of my breathing and between not liking that and not liking breathing through something, I wasn't a fan of it being over my mouth.  But, it wasn't super windy out, so it was okay for the rest of the run to wear it like that without my face getting too cold.  This is what I ran in

FEELS LIKE 26°?!?!?!?!?!  Eeep!  But, I bundled myself up so well that I never really felt cold the entire run, so I didn't run all that "fast."  I actually pretty much ran my normal paces the entire run.  That's still good.  It's less than a week from my next event: a half marathon, so I should be somewhat taking it easy anyway.  This isn't the time to be pushing myself to new limits or faster paces.

The first 2-ish miles, my shin muscles were aching.  It was similar to shin splint ache, but in a different area of the shin.  I knew why it was achy...during my trainer workout, Samy gave me a choice between push-ups and mountain climbers to pair with my sets of suicide sprints.  I chose mountain climbers.  He made me do them with my toes on these slider pads.  Doing the mountain climbers on the pads made me use the muscle on the front of my shins.

Today was a double workout day!  Woohoo!  I burned about 1500 calories between the two too.