Make it stop!

Dear legs - particularly calves,

PLEASE STOP BEING WEIRD.  Seriously.

Thanks,

Corinne

Sooooo my calves have been giving me issues almost non-stop since I hopped back on the training bandwagon.  The first two miles are torture.  Usually my left calf is fine after about a quarter of a mile, sometimes more.  But the right one?  It hates me.  That one takes about 2 miles to finally loosen enough that I can comfortably run. 

 Disclaimer - those are not my legs.  I'm not that hairy.

Each week my times have gotten progressively slower on my longer runs as my right calf continues to give me grief, and this past Saturday was no exception.  I felt defeated with that 13:58 average.  Yeah sure it's still a minute faster than high school but I still felt (and feel) terrible about it.  I didn't enjoy that 8-miler.  I was hoping that Monday would be a return to normalcy, with the first two miles being more walking than running and the last two miles being at a good near-tempo.  But oooooh no no NO my right calf had other things in mind.  My splits were awful.  I was nearly one and a half minutes slower than I was during my long run two days before!

Was I over-thinking things?  Stressed out to the point that exercise just was not going to help me at all?  I have no clue.  But I came home after that run and cried.  I was so disappointed in myself.  Normally I have the mentality "A 14-minute mile is the same as a 7-minute mile, all that matters is that you did it!" but I just couldn't get myself to believe that mantra on Monday.  That calf is just causing me so much grief!

I think part of it may be not enough stretching before and after runs.  My right left definitely felt tighter than my left on Monday, which makes sense since that's my dominant side/leg.  I've been looking up all sorts of calf stretches and exercises and am going to try to make it to the gym for vinyasa yoga classes.  I'm looking to set a real PR on October 19th!  I've got six weeks to figure something out.