This week has been a week of up and downs (I know, it’s barely Thursday). On Sunday, my husband surprised me by announcing we were going to our running store to finally purchase the Garmin watch I had been coveting.

A few of my running buddies have the Garmin Forerunner 10, which they all rave about. It’s not a high tech watch, just a watch with the essentials—time, distance, pace, calories. I’ve used the Nike+ watch and didn’t mind it but like that the Garmin has a larger display (I had the old school Nike+–the one where you had to have specific Nike shoes).

I was like a giddy school girl walking into the store. The door saleslady asked, “Can I help you find something?”

“Garmin!”

She walked me to the watch display and there it was—the exact one I wanted. Sleek, simple, black.

“That one,” I said, pointing inside the glass case.

My husband knew I’d want to test it out immediately.

I decided an easy 3 mile run would be perfect. Finally being able to not have to hold my Galaxy S3 clunker of a phone felt liberating. I felt lighter, swifter….faster. I knew it was partly excitement that was carrying me through my run (my legs had been feeling achy the past few days) but it didn’t matter to me the reason, I was running with my Garmin and I loved it.

Sure enough, when I reached the end I looked down at my watch and saw that I had tied my time with my fastest 3 miler post pregnancy (and really a couple of years pre-pregnancy too!)

But I was hurting.

My legs felt tight and with each step in my cool down I was wincing in pain. This did not feel good.

I made Monday a cross training day hoping to give my legs some relief and on Tuesday night I hopped on the treadmill ready for my scheduled 5 mile run. As soon as I started I knew it wasn’t going to happen. I made it to 3 miles and turned off the treadmill defeated.

I made a pit stop to my trainer on my way out to tell him of my woes. He immediately knew that what was wrong was the ever dreaded shin splints. I had a vague feeling this could be it but in all my years of running, I’ve never experienced shin splints and I couldn’t understand why now this was happening to me. He said it was likely due to me accumulating a lot of mileage so soon and not incorporating enough cross training. No running for at least two weeks he said. He knew he was killing me with that news.

I trust my trainer; he knows me well. The pain wasn’t severe and I felt like I could continue to train but I knew that I could potentially make the situation worse. He knew I was debating this in my head.

“Don’t even think about it,” he said sternly. “You’re at a point right now where you don’t need to see a doctor but if you continue to run you’ll get there.”

It’s so frustrating because I feel like I was finally hitting a groove and with a race each month the next four months I know I’ve got a lot of training to do—and then there’s my first marathon in March.

I’m hoping two weeks is all it will take. I figure I can experiment with new workouts and include more of the ones I know and enjoy doing.

And hope I can have a positive attitude in the meantime.