No More Babying... Time To Really Run

After my successful race last Saturday, I woke up on Sunday morning to get a post race run in. Just an easy five miler to get the kinks out. The run itself went fine. I think I averaged close to 7:45 pace which is pretty darn good after a hard effort like I had with the day before's race. During the run though, I noticed that my right calf had a little twinge to it and was a little tight. Nothing major, just probably a little delayed onset muscle soreness. With that, I decided to take Monday off to rest it, ice it, stretch it, and massage it in the hopes that the tightness would dissipate a bit. Tuesday morning came and I decided to give it a go. Nothing long, just a quick little five miler again. The run started off just fine, but as the run progressed, I could feel that little twinge of tightness occurring once more. Again, it was nothing major or painful, just a little tightness. Another day of rest followed with some more ice, light stretching, ibuprofen and massage. That brings us to today. A day where in essence I said, "No more babying it... Time to put the calf through some real paces and see what happens." By that I mean a good 11 mile run. It was a beautiful fall day to run, too... really crisp and brisk and a little breezy. I even wore a couple of shirt layers because it was so cool. Like Tuesday's run, everything started out just fine. No twinges of pain or nothing. As I got into the fourth and fifth miles I could feel a little tightness but it was nothing that was going to slow me down. I was working on a solid training run and really wanted to finish up strong. Once I had reached the eight mile mark, I felt I was in pretty good shape as far as the calf went. No real discomfort, just a little tightness, no better no worse... just fine with me. Despite taking a couple extra days of rest this week, I really turned out a good run today. The cool temps really reinvigorated me, and because of that, I got in a quality 11 miler at 7:27 pace. I'll take that any day of the week, sore calf or not.

Today's workout: 11.1 miles > 1:22:43 > 7:27 pace

Miles this week: 16.2