Thursday, December 1, 2011

The Calf - part XVIII

Some day I'm going to look back on this period in my running "career" and laugh. Some day is NOT today. I took a night off from working out Weds night - and that was wise. It's still early in the post-Turkey Trot healing stage. I am seeing Dr Wagenblast for another 4 sessions of Active Release Techniques before my next insane undertaking, which you can see from the ticker is the Decker Challenge. In my mind it's the 3rd toughest run in Austin I've ever done - just barely on the heels of the Austin Marathon and the ARA 30K, which is no longer a part of the Distance Challenge. Decker is not called a challenge for nothing - very little of it is flat, the weather always seems to suck, and it's now a full 13.1 miles. The last 2 times I ran it it was a 20K. So another mile of the fun this year.
I'm headed out after work this morning to scout out the course, I may post some pics/video of it. I want to reacquaint myself with the course - and this is something I rarely do when I am in good health. I prefer to just let the course throw at me what it will. That strategy backfired at the Run For The Water 10 miler this year as the hills sapped everything my calves had and I think directly contributed to my calf strain. The cramp I had last week at the Turkey Trot interestingly enough came right AFTER the worst of the hills. So with Decker I am going to formulate an intelligent plan for once, one that will have me walk the major hills and not waste valuable strength. Hopefully that will also translate to less, or no, cramping. The goal here is obvious - finish no matter what, and live to race another day. 3M is not until Jan 29th, so I will have a lot of time to recover. I really hope to go into 3M completely healed. My doc thinks the calf is still right on track, despite the strain I had during the Trot. That's comforting news. I know with a sane workout routine I can at least maintain my current weight and leg strength until I can get Decker behind me.
I am quite bummed that I can't keep running Saturday runs with my Austin Fit training group....they are much further on in their training and I can't risk this calf on the training runs. Once the Distance Challenge is over, I will definitely get back on track with them, for the 2013 Austin Marathon. With any luck I might be able to get in a fall 2012 marathon. Much depends on the summer and how this calf injury heals.

On a more personal note, I went shopping a little with Megs tonight - we headed out to Barton Creek mall. We always enjoy that mall at Christmas time, it's the nicest one in Austin and the decorations are awesome. We'll head back there this weekend for more shopping. Tonight we ate at the cafe in Nordstrom's, one of our favorite places to eat in all of Austin. Fantastic crab bisque there!



I'm perking up finally I think. There is hope!