Being injured is never fun and even less fun when you know you could have probably avoided it. I had some really run training while we were in Florida. I managed to get probably 5 of the 7 days we were there. It was great, considering that back home we were getting pounded with snow every 4 or 5 days. Unfortunately coming home to the snow and ice covered streets didn’t lend itself to running outside. This is the bad part, instead of running on a treadmill I just put in more time on the bike.
At first this worked out Okay. I put in 9 to 10 hours one week on the bike and managed to get one run in. Only one run seems to be the problem. Once I started back up running again, which was probably a week and a half later, my legs were not ready for the volume. I went out for a 10 mile run and could feel my calves getting tight. Didn’t stretch enough when I got home and they were sore again the next day. Next scheduled run was skipped for the bike because of weather.
Here is where things got ugly. Went out last Thursday morning for what was supposed to be an hour easy run. I made it less than two miles and my right calf tightened right up. Had to stop and stretch it, turned back and it started to feel better. Then stupidly tried to continue for a little more and the calf tightened back up again.
The next few days I did some exercises to strength up and stretch out the calf and it was feeling pretty good. Switched my bike and run day so I wouldn’t go out again until Sunday. Supposed to run 10 miles or 1.5 hours. I made it an hour and was feeling good and then, BAM, tightened up again. Made it home, sort of, walked the last mile. So it was a 9 mile run and a 1 mile walk.
After doing some more exercises and switching my next run day out a day I was back out there again this morning. It was definitely tight for pretty much the whole run, but I limited it to the 4 mile loop. Will continue with the exercises and stretching and see what happens for Thursday….