Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Pop Went the Calf Muscle......

Well, as mentioned in a previous post, I have lofty goals for this year both in my nutrition, training, and race schedule (a 50K and two marathons).  The first up is the 50K in April which, as of this week, gives 16 weeks to completely train as well as be in my optimum racing weight.


Taking advantage of the day off with my wife,  we had decided to take a nice run out of Castle Rock Regional Park in Walnut Creek.  We had mapped out an eight mile course, not too strenuous,  with a fair amount of elevation gain.  We knew we would get our feet wet since the creeks are running a nice clip.  I also knew it would be cold out, no problem there. 

That said, my calf was a little tender though from a workout I had done a couple of weeks ago.  I thought it wouldn't be a problem though since I had been running on it for the last week and a half.  I did have a little concern about them hitting the cold water, but not great enough to stop a rare run with my wife.

So we started out pretty strong, everything felt fine.  If you have ever run out of Castle Rock, you know there is some technical work about a mile in; however, no problem there.  About 1.5 miles in you come to the first creek, the water was ankle deep.  It was a little shock to my legs, but again nothing noticeable to my legs. 

Then we got to the second creek.The first couple of steps were pretty shallow, so I trotted through just fine; however, I noticed that the last step would be kind of deep.  So I pushed off with my right leg.  That is when I felt a pop...sort as if a stone had been thrown at my calf.  That was when the pain began.  I thought I could walk it out, but it was pretty intense.

My wife had me sit in the stream, which was great; however, my whole leg stiffened up.  I figured that this wasn't a good thing with a 2 mile walk / limp back to the car.  So we got going back to the car.  I hated the hike back.  I really was disappointed that I wouldn't finish  the run with my wife.  And then really upset to realize how my training schedule is now up in the air until it heals.


Image: jubileesportsphysio.au
When we got back home, I did everything I was supposed to do: Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation (RICE). You actually can find a lot of information on this.  I found this site most useful.  Doing my research I found that I am closer to a stage one strain than a stage two strain which is great.  I also feel a lot better today, able to walk on it with very little pain; however, still wearing the compression sleeve.  

A couple of years back, my wife actually ran on this type of strain; which I do not recommend.  It took her a year to heal properly.

So looks like my grand training program will have to wait a bit.  Hopefully I will be back up and running soon!

2 comments:

  1. Oh man - hopefully you can recover quickly, but I suspect this is the kind of thing that's hard to feel totally comfortable that it's healed, making it hard to know when it's safe to push it again.

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    Replies
    1. That's for sure. This morning it actually felt fine, that is until I got to the top of the stairs and saw that the train was waiting. Missed that train and things are stiff again.

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