Calf Strain

....or Soleus muscle strain to be exact.

My injury a few weeks ago...at least I now know it is an injury...was a strain on my Soleus muscle. I checked it out on the web and understand that there are three types or severity of strain, ranging from grade 1 (minor) to grade 3 (rupture). I have got a grade 1 strain as there are no apparent tears in the musccle, or so my physio says and I have/had no difficulty walking. Grade 1 strain usually requires 2 weeks recovery...so it all depends on when I started recovery as opposed to when the injury first manifested itself.

Needless to say I have not run since my "reckless" interval session last Thursday (recklessness appears to be the order of the day recently in running blogland) other than a brief 10 minute session on the threadmill this morning in order to get some feedback before physio - the feedback is that I can still feel tenderness in the muscle, My physio gave it a good going over....warming, stretching, kneading, hurting all to increase the bloodflow and accelerate recovery. The obvious advice for the Marathon next Monday is that if it begins to hurt stop and pull out... I have only 1 pair of legs as opposed to plenty of races to run.

I am still optimistic about running on Monday. However no matter how good I feel at the start I feel I might be playing the waiting game.....will it be Mile 7 or mile 12 or will I last until mile 19 or 22 before my Soleus tell me......no commands me ...to....STOP!!!. Hopefully it will be the extrapolated mile 28.

Stretching, strengthening and a bit of hot/cold therapy is the order of the day. I have another Physio session on Friday which will inform me more. Until then..............