My Soleus is Draining My Soul

I'll start with the bad news.  A few weeks back, my calf started hurting during a run.  I modified my training a bit and thought I had taken care of it.  In hindsight, I fell victim to wishful thinking and probably should have waited a few days before I started running hard up hills.  Anyways, I tried to run the Vail Hill Climb on Saturday.  It was a little tight before the race, but again, I fell victim of wishful thinking.  I felt great the first mile and a bit, which was flat.  Going up the hill I didn't feel as good as I'd hoped, but my calf was far from my mind.  Then, in one step I knew this had been a stupid idea.

I slowly made my way to the top for reasons I'll discuss later.  I was concerned that it was a strain and had a pretty miserable rest of the day.  Luckily, it just so happens that my 75 year old German neighbor is a physical therapist who specializes in sports medicine.  So I've been visiting my neighbor a lot in the past couple days.

Anyways, I have high hopes for recovery, but I'm trying not to get carried away in them.  After all, if I had just been smart, I probably would be fine right now.

As for the good news, first, I've already stated my neighbor is a physical therapist.  If it wasn't true, I'd think it was too good to be true.  Also, I actually made it to the finish on Saturday.  I had several reasons, one major one being that all of my things and my ride were waiting for me at the top.  Also, my former coach from the Dartmouth Ski Team, Ruff Patterson has a rule:  If you drop out, you owe him the entry fee, even if he didn't pay it, and even if you are an alum.  I don't, however, owe him the entry fee.  In large part because there is no part of that rule that says you owe him the entry fee if you get beat by an 11 year old.  Which I did.  Congratulations Tyler Scholl.  That was a good run anyways, and really impressive given the 11 year old thing you've got going.

Hopefully my next blog will actually be about training and being healthy or something other than icing with peas and carrots and stuff like that.