On the mend ..

Two weeks ago I had to cut short a planned run because of a pain in my left calf. Since then I have decided it was due to a problem with over-stretching my Achilles tendon. I have been resting since then (no walking and definitely no running). The pain seemed to have finally gone away so today I ventured out and walked into town. And I'm pleased to say there was no pain on the walk and none since. So I will carry on with the stretching for a few more days and then will go for a tentative jog around the block and see how my left Achilles feels afterwards. If all is okay, then I can restart my training for the Bath half-marathon (now only 8 weeks away).

Ouch ..

Just when things seemed to be going well, an injury that has stopped any further running for a week or two.

I set out on a 9ml run on Saturday morning but didn't get far. 1.5mls into the run I started to feel a pain in my left calf. I stopped and tried stretching the calf muscle hoping it would help. But when I started running again the pain got worse so I had to abandon my run. The 1.5ml walk home took me 40 minutes and everyone was over-taking me as I was having to take very slow, short strides.

What is frustrating is that I did the usual pre-run stretching routine that I do every time I head out. So I would love to know what has brought this on. Three days on the soreness has mostly gone away. I can drive without any problems and can walk around. It is only when I take a slightly longer stride or go up or down stairs that I notice how 'tight' the calf is.

So I am stretching the leg as often as possible and will just have to give it time to improve. And because of this problem I will spend even longer stretching and warming up before any more runs. I remember a very good stretch that my physio showed me the last time I was being treated - so will be including that one as well in future.

I am guessing it will be January before I can head out again or get on the treadmill and start trying to get myself (literally and metaphorically) back up to speed.

Mission accomplished

The previous long weekend was a busy one with trips to the local recycling centre and a party to attend on Friday, a pre-xmas family get-together taking place on Saturday and more garage de-cluttering and recycling centre visits planned for Sunday. Add being on-call from 10am on Sunday morning to the mix and I was beginning to wonder when I would be able to complete my planned long run. I realised that the only solution would be to get up early on Sunday morning and do my long run before starting the on-call session.

In the event I managed to get out for a run although getting out of bed at 7am seemed a trifle odd (after all, it was the weekend). But I had my breakfast, let it settle, got changed into my running gear and was out of the door by 8:15am. And it was a beautiful morning to be out running. No wind, not too cold, a very light drizzle that soon petered out and not too many dog-walkers out and about in Cirencester Park. For once the other runners I saw outnumbered the dog walkers. Early runs on Sunday mornings are obviously more popular than I realised.

I was planning to up my long run distance to 9 miles. But because I needed to be back home by 10am I had to stick to 8 miles. But even though it was a shorter run than planned, towards the end of the run I reached a target I set myself back in January. I had already worked out my target of 500 miles in 2013 would be reached as I approached the subway at the top of the hill on Tetbury Road. And my cunning plan of balancing the phone on the subway barrier and using the self-timer on my phone worked as you can see ..

I would love to tell you the blurring is due to the sheer speed that I was running past the phone but you would call me a fibber anyway so I won't bother :-)