Running Update #2

I was so excited last week to write about my progress. I had a good week as far as conquering new challenges go. The very next day, the day after I completed a tough 5 hills and felt stronger than I have in several years, ya the day AFTER that I went out in the afternoon for a 6K steady run and nearly cried from the pain in my legs. After the first kilometre my calves were screaming. This was the first time I felt like that. I stopped, walked, stretched and kept running but man the tightness was painful. I pushed through the 6K and gave myself a good stretch afterwards. I went to step the next morning and I guess that it must be different muscles doing most of the work so I didn't feel any pain. Wonderful. The 14K I have planned for Sunday shouldn't be a problem then, right? Nope. I made it about 2K on Sunday and couldn't stretch out the pain in my calves so I turned around and moped all the way back to my car.

On the Monday morning I called massage therapists and got one to take me right away. The massage felt great in a no pain, no gain kind of way. The MT confirmed that indeed my calves were insanely tight and also told me my feet felt like there were 'globules' along the tendons and my hams and quads were a little to tight for her liking also. Great. She told me to bathe in Epsom salts... if only we had a bathtub.

Tuesday night was the moment of truth for me because at this point I am in full panic that my training for the half marathon has been ruined, I'll never get my mileage up high enough and I'm going to keel over and die around the 12K mark during the half-marathon. I managed 4.5 slow kilometres yesterday. My calves were tight but I made it. I have stretched for, probably, a total of 4 cumulative hours of the last 14 hour period and I was sleeping for 7. I'm going back out today for what would have been another hills session but instead I'm just going to make it another easy 5 or 6Km.

This has been a learning experience, there are limitations to how far I should push myself. I pushed to far and my body pushed back. I was also forced to do some more reading about muscles, stretching and relaxation exercises and overall I will be more in tune with myself. All this happened with 2 months to go so I think I can make up for the missed long run and still run the half. I will survive.