u/InsomniaLove

Background: graduated 2 years ago from a top school, theoretical math and computer science double major. Now working as a software engineer in tech. Perfect scores on the ACT (except science) back then. Took 10 humanities classes in various fields throughout college but none were particularly crazy hard. Never took the SAT :P I don’t really read much these days. Have zero intention of going to law school, but I did four years of mock trial I guess.

Setting: my couch on a Sunday morning hungover from a fun night out. My friends and I have been talking about doing a drunk SAT timed test to see how we’d do all these years later so this morning I was thinking about that and started wondering how well training in engineering and math translates to LSAT readiness. Decided to test it out with a full timed Kaplan test.

Experience itself: Ever went to the gym after a few months off and tried to squat the previous weight you left off at? It feels terrible and you’ve got intense DOMS the next day. The LSAT was similarly mentally fatiguing in that way lol. By the last section I’m fighting mental disassociation and my head hurts pretty bad from the cognitive load. Struggling to stare at the page and questions with the given prompt. Genuinely have not thought this hard since graduating, which not sure what this says about me 🫪 Skipped the 10 minute break and soldiered through. Doesn’t help that I rarely read books and have a pretty shit addiction to Instagram reels.

The result: landed a 154. Noticed several issues where I’d gloss over logical statements and miss a teeny detail despite a lot of questions loosely translating to set algebra and I really noticed my mental sharpness has been blunted over time by my shortened attention span (thanks social media). Super fun though!

Takeaways: The brain’s a muscle, and when I was a student it was like a D1 athlete. Not critically engaging it under time and load after college made me dumber over time leading to that mental fatigue earlier on. It’s motivating me to do proof exercises from my old classes and explore the subjects again now with all the time in the world to hopefully bring back some of that mental acuity :P

Entering taper for my first ever half marathon race where I peaked at 41 miles a week. Note that I’ve never done this much volume before, I had been steadily base building for 3 months before coming back from shin splints. Got a little depressed and reduced my 3x strength work down to 1x a week, which I regret now but I was already on the verge of overtraining and getting crappy sleep (which is another problem entirely). I’ve also been dealing with jumper’s knee for a few months now but I’ve had that under control.

Regrets aside, I started having shin splints come on again, so I canceled my longest long run and am now entering a 3 week taper. Started lifting the usual weights 3x a week starting last week realizing that history’s about to repeat itself. It’s been 4 days since I last ran, so I expected to feel good.

Yesterday, I lifted pretty heavy and felt sorer than usual in my hammies. Hard to tell if something was slightly pulled, though, my right hammie felt a wee off.

Shin splints weren’t as intense (good) going out on a 6 mile run today, but I suddenly had the onset of ITB symptoms. Classic pain that climbed up to a 6-7/10 on the outside of the right knee and required me to stop every mile and run 2:00 below my normal pace.

Even when walking home my entire right leg feels heavier and my right hamstring feels sorer.

Does this sound more like onset of IT band syndrome or temporary hamstring strain causing overload of the IT band?

I’m terrified of having to cancel my second race ever again due to injury. Even tonight I did the MYRTL routine and rolled out all the muscles surrounding (but not) the IT band. Will try out an easy run tomorrow and will book a next day appointment with a PT if it shows up again.

Anyone have experience with this kind of thing?