Mon - 1 mile. To mail boxes and back. Leg felt pretty good during the day, so wanted to get out and stress it a bit on a run - actually, just wanted to get out and run, so indulged myself with a mile. Felt okay, but certainly would have been a mistake to take it any further. Slowly, slowly.
Tues - 2.5 miles to bench in park and back. Felt decent for the most part.
Weds - 5 miles (800'). Two or three miles into this run things felt pretty strained, but got around without limping too much. Sore afterwards for most of the day.
Thurs - 5 miles (800'). Woke up with next to no pain from yesterday, which was very encouraging. Beginning to think that I might be able to run through this thing, but I'm going to have to be very cautious. Strapped heavily today and I think things felt better than yesterday, although similarly strained through the last mile and a half. A proper run is still out of the question with the way things feel. Hopefully another incremental improvement tomorrow.
Fri - 8 miles easy. Leg was pretty painful after the run yesterday and I was certain I wouldn't run today, but as seems to be the pattern with this injury, I woke up with very little pain and so talked myself into running - but no hills. Ran on the Spring Creek bike path in town, and for the most part felt pretty good. Pain is still there in the calf but it seems to be manageable. Hills still hurt a lot, so the current plan is to stay on the flat and easy to maintain some degree of fitness until the pain is (hopefully) gone and I can get back in the hills.
Sat - 3 miles easy w/Justin M as a cool down after his 5k in town.
Sun - 10.5 miles on Spring Creek bike path. 1:09. This felt like my first proper run in quite some time. Leg felt close to perfect in the morning, so got into town with a 10 miler in mind. Started out at a comfortable pace for the first few miles with no undue pain in the calf (although when your mind is as focused on one area of your body as mine was during this run, it's always hard to really tell). Decided to pick it up on the back half of the run to really test the leg. Definitely felt it coming back, especially through the last two miles, but decided to keep pushing the mid to low 6s as it felt good and, well, I guess jogging around on bike paths all week was getting a bit tedious. Post-run, the pain is definitely less than after the easy 8 I did on Friday, but it is also pain, which I need to pay attention to. Anyway, I am beginning to feel quietly confident that if I can avoid getting too carried away too soon that this bout of injury/gimpiness will be nipped in the bud by the end of next week.
Total: 34 miles (1,600')
Another low-mileage week, but that is fine. Fitness felt good, if not great, on the 10 miler today, so when I'm able to fully tuck back into some serious training, I'm confident that I won't be totally out of shape. Hills are definitely still an issue with the calf, so I'll have to stay on the flat again next week, but hopefully I'll be ready to get back into my usual routine at Horsetooth soon after that. Still hoping to run Salida next month, although I'll have no problem dropping the race if I don't think the leg is up to it.
Kind of happy I didn't go out to Moab in the end as I got a ton of backlogged project stuff done around the house, including the fireplace tiling project that had been on hold for a good four to five months.
