Falling Off the Map
Wow, that escalated quickly! Or should I say de-escalated. I was feeling good, running well and then a calf injury reached up and grabbed me with the force of a billionaire’s rocket and as misguided as well. I had an occurrence of the same injury last August while vacationing in International Falls, MN for a wedding. I was running on an out and back for a 6 mile run and had just made the turnaround when the pain mysteriously arouse out of nowhere to shut me down from running anymore that day. I limped back to my car at the end of the biking trail. It was a very slow 3 mile hike on the damaged leg. I was out of cell service in the area so I could not call anyone for assistance exacerbating the problem, which shut me down from running in 2022.
Flash forward to 2023. I was running again and had no issues what so ever when again this calf thing cropped up. This time however I could feel it coming slightly, so I immediately turned off the gas and began to walk. In my analysis of the problem I came to the conclusion that at 56 (now 57) years of age, I can’t run everyday anymore. I must give myself a day off between running. I can ride my bike, walk or hike on my running days off, but running on back to back days seem to be too much with not enough recovery.
Good news I was able to keep working out and running a bit during the recovery this time around. Massages: whether via hydro massage at the gym or with the massage “gun” from Costco seemed to help . The gun was useful while driving the car on long trips to keep the calf area loose and warm. The hydro massages are always a relaxing end to a solid workout.
Well, I may have been pulling a disappearing act the last few months with the posts, but hopefully I will be more talkative going forward. Bix 7 is coming up and this will be my 3rd year with my daughters running the event as well. I think I am on 18 Bix’s this year (17 Bix 7 and 1 Quick Bix (2 miles). My girls are debating finally stepping up the 7 miler this year after running the 2 miles the last 2 years. Last year was the first time I ran only 2 miles at Bix. I am feeling much better this year and have completed 7 miles running in training, yet but slowly! If my training continues to improve over the next 2 weeks I feel confident in running the 7 miles on race day.
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