Running For Trevor

After sleeping half the day away I took the dog to the track as is tradition every Sunday.  I was just going to walk but decided to test the waters and assess the damage of yesterdays leg grinder.

I slogged a painful 3 miles.  This little test confirmed that I have definitely pulled something in my left calf.  Hopefully just a muscle strain.  Miraculously my quads do not hurt at all.  My hamstrings are tender and my left calf is down right painful. 

I will ellipticize tomorrow and then reasses the damage.  I do not think this is completely due to the race yesterday but more likely a combination of the race and wearing my racing flats for too many miles last Monday. 

55 minutes of elliptical.  15 minutes walking at an incline on the treadmill.

Okay here is where you all shower me with knowledge.  I attempted to run for 1 minute at a 9mm and it was not happening.  It is not just soreness it is pain in my left calf and now shin.  I guess the good news is I felt no pain at all while on the elliptical but it is intense when running and I am afriad I have done some major damage.

I iced like it was my job yesterday and have been wearing compression sleaves as much as possible.  There is not much I can do to nurse it while at work but what to do??  I'm praying it's not a stress fracture but since I've never had one I have no idea how to evaluate pain.

45 minutes elliptical.

Ran 3.5 miles.  First 2.5 miles felt good.  In the 3rd mile I started to feel the same pain I felt Sunday.  It is bearable but gets worse the longer I go.  The pain is in my left calf and shin.  I am confident I will be okay with enough TLC.  

As suggested by Jake, Andrea, and Lily I took my first ice bath last night.  I wanted to cry for the first 2 minutes but after that it really wasn't too bad and I can definitely tell it helped.  I will do the same thing again today and if all goes okay I am still planning to make the trip to Cali for Napa Valley Ragnar this weekend.  Luckily this is just for fun and I feel no pressure at all to push the pace.

PM:  ran an easy 3 miles with the dog and felt okay.  Going to ice, roll, and heat tonight.

20 minutes elliptical

7.35 pain free running miles.  Yay!!  I think I am finally back to at least 85%.  I still feel a twinge in my left calf/shin but it is not nearly as bad as it was sun/mon.  I cannot believe how dark it is in the morning now.  This entire run was done on a 2 mile out and back by my house.  I was too afraid to face the 'big' roads in the dark alone but I did not care because I was just so happy that I felt good. :)

Off to Cali in the morning and now I feel like I can officially be excited about it.

PM:  2 miles.  It was incredibly windy but I decided to push the pace the last 800 to see if I had any pick up and was able to finish with a 6:58 pace.  Yay!  Finally feeling back to normal.

Just 4 miles at 2am before we left for Cali this morning.  We had someone drop out on our Ragnar team so I will be running an extra leg.  I am excited to have some fun. :)

Napa Valley Ragnar was a blast as all ragnars are.  I'll post all the fun stuff on my personal blog www.runningfortrevor.blogspot.com. 

I went into this race just wanting to be careful to not re-injure myself, have fun, run consistant, and did I mention have fun?  My team was short a runner so I ended up picking up an extra leg.

Leg 1:  7.8 miles  57:16, 7:21 pace.  Enjoyed this leg.  It was hilly and I was running along a lake so the headwind was pretty bad for the first 3 miles.  I did however discover the luxory of Sea level and breathing felt effortless.

Leg 2:  2.9 miles 20:56, 7:12 pace.  This was my extra leg and it flew by.  I got stopped at 2 stop lights so that was slightly annoying.

Leg 3:  6.2 miles 46:06, 7:31 pace.  After a 45 minute break I ran this leg in the dark.  I was all alone (this is by far the smallest ragnar I have ever ran) and I felt like I was going the wrong way.  But I wasn't and I finished.  Yay!

Leg 4:  6.8 miles 51:19, 7:31 pace.  I literally got zero sleep per usual in Ragnar.  The only thing I can compare this leg to is the marathon death shuffle.  I just kind kept moving my feet.

Again I'll get into more details of the race on my personal blog but I had a good time and ran a good medium-hard tempo pace the entire time.  Although I always go into Ragnar's with the main goal of "just have fun" I do feel they are great training runs and they force you to run on fatigued and tired legs.