Most athletes hit bumps along the way in their training – IT’S NORMAL! It could be from a lack of motivation, an injury, odd pains, work stress; honestly, the list can go on. During christmas week, I happened to fall into the “odd pain” category, so I wanted to share with you my experience, and give you guys the low down of what happen, how I recovered, and let you know that something you may think is serious, may just be your body telling you to RELAX!
I made christmas week a easy week (a pull back week) of training, because I knew that I would be traveling and spending most of my time in a car, and with family. My Christmas training week looked like:
- Monday – Rest (Ran long on Sunday)
- Tuesday – Rest (Traveled to Long Island)
- Wednesday – Easy Run (4 miles @ 8:45 pace)
- Thursday – Rested – Traveled (Mysterious calf swelling & pain developing)
- Friday – Rested (Now I couldn’t walk downstairs; limited range of motion of my knee)
- Saturday – Rested (Pain getting better with rehab protocol – PRICE method)
- Sunday – Rested (Pain almost gone with adopted PRICE method)
So I am like any other runner. I freak the heck out when something on my body doesn’t feel right, especially because I beat my body up during college, and I was extremely injury prone. I got crazy nervous that I was out for the count this time around, and I was going to have to take sometime off again. So, after I had my neurotic runner attack of, “MY LIFE IS OVERRRRR & I WON’T BE ABLE TO RUN AGAIN!!!” I calmed down and addressed the situation. My calf was definitely swelling, so I iced it twice a day (at least) for about 10 – 20 minutes elevated. I pretty much followed the PRICE method which is Protect. Rest. Ice. Compression. Elevate. I did do one ice bath after my 4 miler on the following Monday to get the full circumference of ice around my entire leg and butt. I did this because I still am not sure what caused my calf to freak out, and with referred pain patterns I wanted to get the whole leg covered. I am guessing that the cold could have pissed it off on the 4 miler on xmas; maybe my muscles were just not warmed up enough.
Taking 4 days off of training SUCKS! I need my endorphins!! However, I’m a lucky lady to have such a great boyfriend to deal with my whining during these times of training, and gave me ample massages!! At the end of the day, I am happy that this happen, because now I can share with you guys that if you do have a pitfall in training – listen to your body and give it some TLC! By resting for the 4 days, icing my leg 360 degrees around while elevating it, light foam rolling, light stretching, and using compression socks – I got BETTER! I feel perfectly fine and I have resumed my regularly scheduled training program; just went easier on effort this week, but did all the workouts I was suppose to. This week’s training was:
- Monday – Ran EASY 4 miles (9:15 pace)
- Tuesday – Cycled 45 minutes
- Wednesday – Yoga & Strength Training
- Thursday – Fartlek (2 mile warm up, 2 min up tempo pace, 1 min back off X 6, .5 mile cool down)
- Friday – Rested
- Saturday – Cycle (45 min) & Strength *keep ya posted how this goes*
- Sunday – Long Run (SLOW 9 miles) *keep ya posted how this goes*
Life is funny, because when sometimes things look like it’s the worst. It’s usually not. Try to view life with a positive & open mind, and everything just gets better. I turned my,”I’m injured again attitude,” into “This is suppose to happen,” and listened to my body, because it knows what it wants!! In this case, it was REST!
Where To Buy
1. Compression Socks (http://www.cepcompression.com/progressive-run-socks-2-0.html)
***Make sure you measure you calf before buying! You don’t want them too tight. Also, I use socks NOT calf sleeves, becasue there is data that the sleeves could cause DVT in runners. Check out this article! (http://postinjuryrunning.com/Blog/?p=619)***
2. Foam Roller (http://www.tptherapy.com/Shop-Online/All-TPPT-Products/The-GRID-2-0-Foam-Roller.html)
3. Ice Packs (http://www.amazon.com/Chattnooga-Colpac-Therapy-Vinyl-Oversize/dp/B0013YCBK4)
***************Natalie Johnston is USATF certified runner coach serving areas PA, NYC, & NJ.*****************
