I came up lame! Shoot me.

I’ve been training for the ½ marathon on Nov 1st, and have done 12 mi runs for the past 3 weekends, with an 8min/mi pace. My 10K training pace has been 7:35 or 7:40 – a couple of those every week. I was feeling cocky and anything better than an 8min/mi for Sunday’s 10miler would have made me happy. I thought a 7:45/mi was easily in reach for me.

Went out at a 7:30 -7:40 pace, knowing that might be a bit fast, but was feeling good. Then I felt the calf pain at ~4 miles. Had to stop and felt if I could just stretch it out and massage it, it would feel better. Thought it was just a calf cramp- which I had never had before. Turns out, by location, soreness and inflammation, it seems to be a soleus tear. Finishing the rest of the 6 miles on it, probably didn’t do it any good (except for the experience of running through excruciating pain). And moving furniture all afternoon (instead of RICE) I’m sure just made it worse.

I was hydrated, had breakfast- including a banana that morning- so probably not an electrolyte deficiency. Especially not at only 4 miles. My diagnosis of the problem- No warm-up. Normally I run 2.5 miles, then stretch out, then continue my long run or intervals. I didn’t do that on Sunday. Just walked up to the starting line and started to run (dumb for a 45 year old). Also, my right leg is chronically tight and I always need to stretch it more (Karma Kintzler pointed this out to me).

At first I was just annoyed at my 1:21 time. But now I’m wondering how long it’s going to take this soleus tear to recover and if I just killed my HM coming up. Doah!

Race Results: http://www.azroadrunners.org/results/detail/get_moving_tucson_2009_results