Every Run is a Great Run!

Busy day today I had to hurry up to SLC after the morning run to go to a work-related conference, so haven't had a chance to log the run until now.

Ran in the morning due to SLC work stuff. Turned into possibly major bummer race season-ending run. Actually the run was great up until the moment I felt my left upper calf seize up on me.

Up to that point I had done my planned workout - 4 miles easy then 5 x 3min hill repeats @ around MP but 5K effort with the uphill factor, in between reps jog easy back down hill. I felt really good doing the repeats, felt like all the hills I've been running recenly and especially the steep hill sprints have given me more power with my usually weak uphill gear.

Split info (distance/pace): .41/7:24, .42/7:15, .42/7:13, .42/7:10, .41/7:10

But then on the dang very last repeat about 5 seconds from finishing I felt the grab in my calf and knew something not good had happened. Tried stretching, massaging to loosen it up so I could jog home but I could never get it to feel very good. It's been bothering me most the day and it didn't help to have to be on my feet much of the day in at the conference in not-so-comfy dress shoes talking to customers.

Tonight I've been doing all the R-I-C-E stuff. I'm pretty good at the I-C-E but lousy when it comes to the 'R'. But I have vowed to do things right in regards to this injury and let it heal up properly. I'll attempt some cross-train to see if anything works without aggravating the injury, eliptical seems like the best bet (swimming is not an option for me).

For future reference I want to review everything I think I did wrong to lead to this apparent injury.  I ran a 9K race on the 13th. I am aware of the rule-of-thumb that says 1 easy/rest day per mile-of-the race in the days after the race, and had actually planned that into my next week, but I messed up the following Monday because I felt better than usual after a race and I ran faster than I should have when I ran with Nate. So that's Mistake #1. Mistake #2 was doing the steep hill sprints on Wednesday since that is when I first noticed the "twinge" in the calf. Mistake #3 was doing another hard uphill workout today.

So there it is. I'll try the crosstrain tomorrow or the next day and see how that goes. No plans for running until I can do a 45-min walk or XT workout without any pain. 

This is probably as good a time as any to do this. I've had a little bout of PF going as well (I get this about every 2-3 years) so this will give me a chance to nip that one in the bud as well. 

 8:10

Well maybe I was overly dire in my assesment of my injury yesterday. I fully expected when I got out of bed this morning to hardly be able to walk, but to my pleasant surprise I felt pretty darn good. I'm thinking Dale was correct in his comment to me yesterday that these calve issues can seem much worse than they really are.

Nonetheless I decided to be extra cautious and take the day off. Didn't do any cross-training either but I might go for a walk in a little while. Tomorrow I'll try some combination of cross-train and light running and see how it goes. At any rate I'm feeling very gracious to the Man Upstairs for small miracles and tender mercies, even when I haven't done much to deserve it.

Today was the first day to officially test out the calf. Looks like I dodged a bullet and I'm going to luck out in the injury dept.  I first did about 30min of crosstraining, mostly on the elliptical but some on the bike and stairs. Everything felt great, no pain in the calf but definitely still a tender sensation and a feeling like there's a big knot in there. A little massage work may be in order. I'm still a little nervous stretching it very much.

Since the XT went well I decided to go for a nice easy run. Thankfully things went very well and ended running 8 miles. The calf gradually loosened up and felt best at the end of the run. Mentally I was feeling a bit sluggish, probably due to being on my feet all day in lousy shoes the last couple days in SLC and eating too much garbage food at the conference. It's too hard to turn down all the chocolate stuff they have at the desert table.

So for now I'll stick with the training program as far as mileage, but for the next few days until I feel like the tenderness/knotiness is gone, I won't do any steep uphill running or anything any faster than MP pace and mostly all in the very easy range.

8:50/139

Felt a little perky starting out so I got a little daring with the gimpy calf and did some MP miles in the middle. Felt good until the wind kicked up and ruined the moment. Plus my calf started giving me hints that I better not push my luck and HR was creeping up higher than it should so I slowed way down for the rest of the run. Hopefully I didn't overdo it.

I'm still considering adding more cross-training to my regiment and maybe dropping my running days to 5 or even 4 days, at least until the calf feels fully healed. This goes along with guidelines that Brad Hudson suggests for masters runners. Just wish the cross-training was a bit more enjoyable.

8:01/160

Decided to follow Andy's wise lead and bag the run today in hopes of increasing the odds of having a positive long run experience tomorrow. Looking at the weather makes the choice look even better.

Friday is kind of an optional-run/crosstrain-instead day for me anyway so I figured I'd see how much gym action I could mentally tolerate. Ended up getting 75 minutes, probably worth around 8 miles running.

Did 45 minutes on elliptical, 15 min bike and 15 min stairs. No calf pain whatsoever. I was surprised the calf didn't complain about the stair machine but I felt great throughout, other than the boredom factor. Sure is hard to get the HR up though.

Thankfully I had some tunes to help out, good mix of old and new bands... Beatles, Steve Miller, Journey, Green Day, Foo Fighters, etc. Today's winner as far as best use of creative rhyming in a song lyric goes to the tune where the attempt is made to rhyme "Texas", "facts is", "justice", and "taxes". Can anyone name the band and the song?

AHR: 132

I was nervous about this long run today what with all the issues with the calf this week. So what a pleasant surprise to enjoy the best run I've had all week and the calf felt the best it has since I tweaked it. Good to know that a strategic extra rest day or cross-train day here and there can work wonders on my aging legs.

With UVM approaching I was eager to get up the canyon and start running the course. So today I drove up to near Bridal Veil, ran up about 4.5 miles then down mostly on the course route 15 miles.  I wasn't sure how safe it would be to run on the road but it turned out fine. I waited until it was pretty light and ran against traffic. Turns out most of the road coming down the canyon has plenty of extra room on the side for runners/bikers so there is a good margin of safety.

I think this will be a great marathon course. The middle section has some tough sections with the up/down rolling hills but the last 6-8 miles are nice gradual downhill with just a couple of "bumps". I look forward to checking out the first 10 miles of the course in the coming weeks.

Pushed the pace just enough to beat the 8-min man.

7:57/164