Testing the Baby Cow

After two days completely OFF, which is very strange and somewhat disheartening for me, I was ready to test out my right calf this morning. Friday was a write off as I stayed home with one of the boys who had gotten sick. I wasn't planning on running, choosing to miss my regular two training runs, but I had hoped to do some upper body weights. Saturday was spent carting the boys around town to and from basketball games and practices and shoveling snow. Even if I had wanted to run I figured the snow would have meant bad footing and likely another setback.

So, that brought me to Sunday morning. It was clear, the sidewalks were (I hoped) mostly cleared, and the air was cold with a strong wind from the NW. I didn't much case as I was itching to test my injured muscle. I was out before the Sun had cleared the horizon and ran into the wind on an out-and-back. My minimum distance was supposed to be twenty kilometres, but secretly I wanted to run a bit farther than that. I figured I'd take it one step at a time and see how I felt at 10k.

I ran down to the Danforth and then West along Bloor all the way to High Park. The route was boring and I was forced to take little breaks here and there as I waited for traffic lights to turn green, but that was not such a bad thing given the calf. I also decided to take along a package of Gu Chomps with me to get some carbs into my body somewhere along the way. The route is fairly flat with a couple of hills as I neared the turnaround, and the sidewalks were mostly pretty good with the exception of a few spots where I was slipping and sliding every which way. All told, better than expected but not perfect.

I ran along and felt pretty good, so at 10k I decided to make it one more kilometre before heading back home. I ate half the Gu Chomps at the turnaround point and the rest on the way back as I ran. They were the strawberry flavoured ones and tasted pretty good, but it was not easy eating them while running. I will have to practice more if I choose to use these things in the future and in races.

Ultimately I managed a decent 22km run at 5:09/km average pace (8:17/mile). Not counting the stopping for the traffic lights this took me 1:53:26 to run. Not bad.

As far as the calf is concerned, I could still tell that the tightness is there and that the injury is not 100% recovered. I can run steady and slow like I did today, but will back off on any intervals for at least another week.

My total mileage for the week was a measly 42.2km. That's exactly the same distance as a Marathon, so I suppose that's a good thing. Well, at least it's a "thing", good or otherwise.