New Plans

By now, its old news that I pulled a calf muscle on my training run last weekend, just one week before the LI Marathon, my running goal for the year. Did everything I could think of to heal it and recover to be able to do the marathon. It was really feeling okay by Friday morning. Did nothing Monday through Wednesday, even took the subway to work, which I rarely do. I had done 45 minutes on the trainer Thursday morning and did my usual 3 mile walk to work that same morning and it was feeling okay. Tried to run on Friday morning, but after 1/2 mile the muscle tightened, hurting badly, and I knew the marathon was out of the question.

So, time to rethink things. I definitely need to forget about running for 2-3 weeks and let everything heal fully. Fortunately, I don't feel it at all on the bike. We are getting into the thick of cycling season now so the plan is to be bike-centric for the rest of the spring and summer. I will start running again in a few weeks and try to build a more substantial base. Then, I will probably shoot for a goal of doing a marathon in the fall. The best candidate right now looks to be the Wineglass Marathon, upstate in Corning on October 3rd. Hopefully I can make a weekend out of it with the family.

Last thoughts on this (I promise!): In retrospect, I may have rushed the training too much. I did not want to give up on cycling, so I was only a part time runner. It was only 3 months since the 3-week break after my hamstring pull so I'm thinking I did not have enough of a base built up. I should have had more 10-mile runs instead of 5-mile runs. Also, I would like to get in 2-3 20-mile runs before the marathon instead of just one. Going to concentrate more on preparation, nutrition, and stretching. These probably have more to do with this kind of injury than just raw miles.

See everyone on the road!