Three Miles Forward, One Mile Back...

My new friend from Boot Camp, Jimmy Olander (What? Me, name drop? Noooo...) invited me to run today with his running group, Team Rio. They are training for the Country Music Marathon and raising money for Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Middle Tennessee. They were doing 8 (half-marathoners) and 14 (full-marathoners) miles, but since I'm not doing any distance training right now, Jimmy offered to put out a turn-around marker for me for whatever distance I wanted to go. I said I thought I could do four miles, so a two-mile turn-around marker was set.

Ted came with me, and it's a good thing, because I was just at the right speed that I would have been totally alone after about mile one. I'm faster than the walkers, but slower than the runners. Ted and I adjust pretty well to each other's abilities, so we stuck together. He is much stronger for the first mile and a half or so, and I tend to struggle in the beginning and get my second wind later in the run. I was having some pain in my right calf, but it was tolerable and felt like something that could be taken care of with ice and rest, so I pushed through it for a while.

We were doing really great up until about the beginning of mile four (that's my estimate, didn't have my Garmin on), when my right calf started to really hurt; by this time, it was starting to feel more like a something-is-wrong hurt rather than a push-through-it-you're-just-tired hurt. So we walked (I alternated between walking and limping) the rest of the way back.

What really sucks about it is that everything else on my body felt great; my lungs felt good, my legs weren't heavy, I felt like I could have run a lot of that last mile, if not for that damn right calf. I was wearing my fivies, and I hate to say it, but I'm afraid they are the culprit. I may not be able to wear them for running at all.

So, ice tonight, rest tomorrow, and hopefully I'll be able to make it through boot camp Monday.

Oh, one more thing. When we got back from the run, Ted and I used The Stick on each other to roll the lactic acid out so we won't be so sore tomorrow. I swear, I'm going to have an audio recorder on in the room next time we do that. I'm not sure whether it will sound like a sex tape or a murder scene, but either way, it should be very entertaining.