Official

Saturday: Tried the calf strain rehabilitation exercises recommended by my doctor. They are all pretty easy except the wall jumps, because any sort of jumping is painful. I managed 5 jumps. I went to the gym to see if the elliptical would be an option while my calf heals. I was so bored that I left about 5 minutes later.

My wall jumps were not nearly this fun [image: http://www.mariowiki.com/Wall_Jump]

Sunday: Plenty of walking.

Monday: More calf strain rehabilitation exercises. I can now jump 10 times and it is just a bit uncomfortable. Made it official and paid to defer my race entry to 2015. 

Not how I like to spend my money.

Tuesday: I took a 2 hour nap to try to forget about my disappointment. It didn't help. I drank a few glasses of wine which did help.

Wednesday: Calf strain rehab and a 2 mile walk. I tried running a few short segments and was able to slow run maybe a tenth of a mile before feeling some discomfort in my calf. A definite improvement over the 5-10 steps that I made it last time. As soon as I felt any discomfort I switched back to walking for a few minutes. 

My plan is to continue with the calf rehabilitation exercises for the next few days as well as walking a few miles each day. I know I will be tempted to try to run again every day, but I am going to force myself to take 2-3 days before I try it again. I don't want to hinder my recovery by overdoing it.

Ideally I would plan on run/walk intervals over the next few weeks. In November I would begin building back to my pre-injury level of running (35 miles per week). Then I would start my next training cycle on December 8th. I don't know if this is a realistic timeline, so I am trying not to get ahead of myself. But I just want to be running again.

Not happening.

Yesterday I tried to test out my leg to see if I was able to run at all. My plan was to apply heat, stretch, then head out on a walk. After about a half mile walk (to get everything all nice and warmed up) I was planning to alternate 30-60 seconds of running with 60-90 seconds of walking. Instead I ran approximately 10 steps before the pain started back up.

On one hand my calf used to hurt immediately if I tried to run and I can now run the length of my car without pain, so I am making improvement. On the other hand, a marathon is 26.2 miles and I know that means I would have 10 pain free steps followed by approximately  43,190 extremely painful steps. No thanks!

This morning my doctor diagnosed me with "Calf pain, right." Such insight! And offered up treatment advice that includes "If it hurts, don't run." So helpful!

Advance apologies to everyone I encounter in the next few weeks.

That is probably snarkier than necessary and I should say that my doctor was really nice and definitely felt bad telling me that I shouldn't run the marathon. I was also given a bunch of strengthening exercises and have a follow up appointment booked for October 20th (the day after the marathon). My follow up appointment is booked with the sports medicine doctor in the practice (she was out of the office today, of course!). I was also cleared to continue walking and try swimming, biking, or the elliptical (assuming I can do so pain free). So at least I'll be able to do something for the next few weeks.

I still haven't actually deferred my race. I know that I should. I know that I NEED to. But...I'm just not ready to make it official yet.

back and forth

I've been going back and forth between feeling confident that I can still run the marathon and angry rage at having a stupid injury derail my plans. 

On Monday I thought that my calf must be making progress since I didn't have any pain while walking, including stairs which have been just a bit painful. I really worked to convince myself that the heat/massage/ice routine from Sunday night was doing the trick. 

I was able to do even more heat/massage/ice on Monday, a bit of massage before work and the full routine after work and again before bed. The massage and foam rolling hurt a bit more on Monday than it did on Sunday. Not sure what to make of that.

 

Tuesday morning I had a bit of soreness in my calf, but instead of the sharp pain I have been experiencing, it felt like normal muscle soreness. I took this to be a good sign. After a bit of heat and a bit of walking around my calf was back to feeling normal. At this point I was feeling really confident!

Unfortunately I left work late and had to run to catch my bus. I only ran about 10 yards, but man did it hurt! I'm not sure if it hurt as much as my test run last week, but there was definitely pain in each step. This basically put me right back to the angry rage. I stuck with my made up treatment plan for the night: heat, foam roll, walk, and ice. The heat felt amazing. Foam rolling was a bit tender. I was nervous for the walk after my painful mini run, but it turned out just fine.

Overall, I'm not sure what to think. Excluding my test run last week, I am now at 9 days without running. I won't be running tonight, so might as well call it 10 days. If I can't run pain free this weekend, I know need to just defer. It sucks, but it is what it is.

Marathon Week 16

This is what week 16 should have looked like:

Monday: rest
Tuesday: 5
Wednesday: 6
Thursday: 5
Friday: rest
Saturday: 4
Sunday: 12

That is not at all what happened. Remember the nagging calf pain that I mentioned in last week's post? Well that has turned into a bit of a serious problem. I took Monday - Thursday as rest days. I figured four days would give my leg plenty of time to rest/heal/fix itself. I planned to do 3-5 miles on Friday based on how I was feeling. Instead I managed a bit over a mile with my right calf hurting every step of the way.

Week 16
Monday: rest
Tuesday: rest
Wednesday: rest
Thursday: rest
Friday: 1.28
Saturday: rest
Sunday: rest

Total miles: 1.28

I spent the rest of the weekend trying not to think about running. My internet diagnoses is that it is a mild calf strain. Since I can walk with minimal pain and there isn't any bruising or swelling, I don't think it is too bad. I've started a rather intense massage/foam rolling routine that I'll be doing multiple times a day. I tried it last night and there seems to be a bit of an improvement this morning.

I'm hoping that I'll be able to run on Wednesday. If I can get back to pain free running by the weekend, I should be okay for the marathon. It is actually good that this happened at the start of the taper. I was able to finish all of my high mileage weeks AND I still have a few weeks to let this heal.

Less than two weeks to go!