Calf Update

Many of you will have heard me moaning on about my calf over the last few weeks. So I am sure that you will be nearly as pleased as I am to hear that I am back running again. I had run for the first time in several weeks at Wildflower last week which went reasonably well. After that my coach suggested that I rested it for another week and substitute my runs with pool running. If you have ever tried pool running you will know how incredibly boring it is. There is not a lot you can do while you creep from poolside-to-poolside other than day dream.
The plan for last Sundays workout included a one hour swim in Aquatic Park followed by a 2.5 hour run. I knew that I couldn't just jump back into things full on so I planned to run for an hour and see how things felt, and maybe run for another 30 minutes or so after that. As it turned out, I headed out with John, Kim, George and Sussi and managed to hold a reasonable pace, although we let George go at the first hill. The course included running up from Fort Point and down to Baker Beach where we had to endure the nudist (no they were not attractive), and the sand stairs. The latter is a very steep sand bank with some logs pretending to be steps. The only way up is to walk it. This was an interesting experience as it is part of the Escape for Alcatraz course which I will be doing in early June. Jenny, who I ran the second half of the course with, told me that her tri club practices on these by running up them with a backpack full of sand. Apparently it makes the race seem relatively easy. After completing 1.5 hours of running with the group I still felt good, so I decided to push it a little further to complete about 13 miles in 2 hours - all without any discomfort in my calf.
One of the key parts of my recovery has been the deep tissue massage therapy that I have been getting from Jenny at PSOAS. Without this I think that I would still be hobbling around. I would strongly recommend her if you need any body work.