Shutting It Down for a Week

My leg pain hasn't really gone away in the last few days, but it also hasn't gotten worse, so I've decided to shut it down for a week and see how that goes. A bit more detail follows.

I took both last Wednesday and Thursday as rest days to see if the minor pain would resolve itself quickly. By Friday, I really wasn't feeling any discomfort at all, which I took as a good sign. On Friday evening, I went for a normal run of about 5 miles, but at a pretty slow pace of about 9:22/mile. Around mile 4, my right calf muscle got really tight and painful. This was the only point where I could also feel tightness in the same spot that's been painful and I eventually stopped because I could also feel some pain coming.

Interestingly, I stretched my calf out and kept running, and the tightness on my leg disappeared as well for the remainder of the run. Only after I got home and the muscles tightened up again did the pain come. It wasn't intense or acute, but very noticeable as I walked or went up and down stairs. I iced it for a bit, and massaged the calf. All that seemed to help, but the return of the pain was disheartening. Again, it hadn't gotten worse, but it also wasn't any better after just 48 hours of rest.

Additionally, the spot was sore when I woke up on Saturday morning and was uncomfortable for about half the day, before the pain disappeared completely. Yesterday, it didn't hurt at all. My calf was also really sore on Saturday, but now feels much better.

I didn't run at all Saturday or Sunday, and am going to take this whole workweek off as well to give the leg a full 7 days of rest. During that time I'm going to work on some stretching and strengthening exercises. I also made an appointment with the doctor but they can't see me until next Wednesday, so that's not really immediately helpful.

But the plan is to wait until Saturday and then test the leg with maybe a short 3 miler and see how things feel. No running before then, no matter how good the leg might feel. If that goes fine, I'll try another 3 miler on Sunday and then depending on how that goes, make a decision on whether to see the doctor next week. I may still go just to cover my bases, though.

It's definitely disappointing, but I don't have any big races coming up and if for some reason I have to bag the 5K later this month, it's fine. 

Beyond that, I think gradually getting back to training will be critical, obviously. Also, I plan on running mostly in my old Brooks Ghosts at first, and then run in the Launch more and more over time since the Ghosts offer a bit more support than the Launch.