Unintentional Taper

As the southern saying goes, “If you’re scared, say you’re scared!” Ok. I guess I am a little bit scared. I have been gearing up for the Gum Tree 10K Run this Saturday well before I started my training several weeks ago. After all, I have wanted to run this race for a long time, years even. It is not until recently that I have worked up the mileage to make a decent attempt at it.

Then came to calf injury.

I would say it happened two and a half weeks ago during a hill workout but, truth is, I am not really sure when it happened. I changed shoes a week and a half before it started so I wonder if this is part of it. Unfortunately, I didn’t write a lot about the injury in my online running log, probably because I thought it was just a little soreness. So I can’t really pinpoint when it started, but it is a soreness and pain that just won’t go away!

After I realized it was an injury two weeks ago, I took off five whole days! The calf began feeling better but I had an easy week last week, running only 20.3 miles. I felt really strong in my 7.25 long run on Saturday but I must have tweaked the injury because the dull pain came back and has not gone away since!

I have only run one time this week: A run just under 5 miles in which I ran a lousy 9 min/mile pace. I had planned to give it another try today but I overslept! It may have been a good thing because the calf is still pretty sore.

I went to the Runner’s World website that has the figure you can click on to find out what possible injury you have. It told me to wrap my calf, ice it, stretch several times a day, and avoid any hard workouts. I have gotten a six-inch ace bandage and started wrapping it yesterday. With only 4.8 miles of running this week so far, saying I have “avoided any hard workouts” is an understatement.

It is disappointing that this happened just before the race. I plan to run a 3-mile semi-tempo run tomorrow unless something happens. I will probably wrap it during the run tomorrow but I have not decided on the race yet. I still want to run the race in under 55 minutes, but with the injury, I’m a bit….yes…..scared.
Someone commented on my previous post that my legs wouldn’t forget how to run on Saturday. I am sure hoping they don’t!