Grade 2 Calf Strain

Well in short, I'm an idiot.

The one thing that I thought I had taken out of my injury last year was that I need to listen to my body but I guess I didn't actually learn my lesson.

Doing a short fast workout about 3.5 weeks ago on a Thursday my calf/achilles area felt tight and was bugging me a bit. I didn't think much of it because I've had the same exact feeling many times before. The next however it was still tight but I was just doing a nice easy run so I'd tough it out and then it was the weekend so I could stay off it and it would be fine. It actually felt better the next day for a longer workout and I didn't notice it much until afterwards. The next day I could definitely feel it when I got up but I told my self I'd just get through my long run and hopefully it would loosen up after a couple miles (which it did) and then I'd take the next day off from running and bike. The next day however was gorgeous out and I decided to move the off day to Wednesday because it wasn't bugging me much. The next day however I was on my feet all day at work going up and down a lot of stairs in waders and my leg was bugging me before we even started to warm up. Again though I decided to push onward and hope it loosened up on the warm up (which it did) and then get through the workout and definitely take Wednesday off. The workout was some fast quarters which was probably the worst thing it could have been and my leg got progressively worse as the workout went on and I even considered stopping before the last one but once again I had to decided to just push on and deal with it after the workout. I finally pushed too far though and as I turned onto the final straight and started to make a move to pass on the outside, I felt a pop in my leg and I was done.

At first I thought I had ruptured my achilles so obviously the calf strain is a lot better than that and I was relieved to discover I wouldn't need any surgery. That relief is little comfort to me though when thinking about how stupid I was and how easily this could have been a few days off rather than a few weeks or more.

I know the factors main factors that lead to it:

1. Switching to 3 workouts a week from 2 without backing off my other runs

2. Doing all my workouts in spikes

3. Not doing a good enough job of getting loose before my workouts in the cold weather

4. All the biking I did this fall winter got my cardio system in better shape than my legs

Even though I should have paid better attention to all of these and done a few things to compensate for them, my body still gave me an out and I ignored it. If somethings a little sore for a day or 2 and goes away it's one thing. The fact that this got worse and I still tried to push through it is what really has me angry at myself and no one else.

There's never a good time for an injury but this injury came at an especially bad time, just a week before my season opener. I've started to do PT and have been trying to take it as easy as possible but it's still not going to be an easy road back. I'm trying to do everything the right way and listen to my PT but it's definitely frustrating when all I can do is stretch and rest. I did nothing but stretch for 2 weeks before I got the go ahead to bike and I'm still only up to 40 minutes. There's not much else I can do until the calf finishes healing and then we can start to rebuild the strength.

For the record, I was in shape to run right around 4:00 when I went out and we were just starting to really get into some speed work. I was in really good shape but I ended up costing myself the chance to see how good.

A need for speed

So my training over the past couple weeks has really come along well. I had my first consecutive 50 mile weeks since before my plantar issues last winter and strung together a few good workouts.

As nice as it's been to have Jenn and Tom to work out with I was extremely excited on Friday night to run with some of the guys I used to work out with before all my issues. Even though they're all 10k-5k guys and most of the work out was quick for them, but right in my comfort zone, it was still great to mix it up with guys and run a quality workout. I'm not going to get into too many specifics but I ran a few 440s in 63 to end the workout so it was definitely nice to go fast again.

We'll see how I continue to progress as I get into better and better shape. Although I'm still having a tougher go with the strength workouts, I'm hoping that will change as I continue to add a few miles a week and keep working hard. Today was my first long run that was higher mileage than most of my workout days have been so as that gets longer, I should definitely be getting stronger.

I'm officially running the 3k at Terrier in 2 weeks. This will be my first race since last June so I'm not exactly expecting huge things. I do intend to go out and run hard and really see where my fitness is. I have 2 more weeks to get ready for it both physically and mentally. I'm both excited and nervous for it. It should be fun.

The Beginning

I've always considered writing a blog but never actually got around to doing it. Not sure how serious I'm going to be about this especially since I haven't even told anyone about this yet.

If I do keep this up it will probably be a weekly recap about life which, if you're reading this blog you probably already know, has a great deal to do with running. Most of the posts will be about my running but I'll probably keep it on a pretty general basis. I might mention a specific workout here or there but I figure anyone who I feel needs to know what I'm doing on a daily basis for workouts already knows. If you don't know but would like too, you can always ask.

As for running right now, I'm on the comeback trail from an injury last spring. Therefore it's not really pretty right now, it's just a lot of slogging through the training trying to get back to a level where I'm fit enough to really focus on racing.

I guess that's all I got for now.