My pulled calf continues to be a real pain in the ass. Last week my leg was feeling a lot better. I wasn’t limping in any shape or form and touching my calf didn’t hurt either. So I decided to go for a 30 minute run around 6 oçlock in the evening (when it’s cooler) last Thursday.
After a little stretching I started to run. I was staying in Ban Ruk in the north of Thailand so I decided to run to the island Big Bhudda which was a few kilometres away. The first 5 minutes of running my leg was a little sore and it felt like it was going to pull again. I was being very cautious and was jogging really slowly and shortly afterwards the pain was away and my leg felt great.
I continued my run, which by this point resembled a pedestrian version of crazy taxi as I had to manoeuvre pot holes, cars, motorbikes and crazy dogs. This was no easy task and I ran on the road for most of it as the Thailand goverment have no idea what a pavement (sidewalk) is. It took me about 12 minutes to get to the bridge at Big Bhudda so I headed back out to the main road and continued up for another 5 minutes or so. Along the way a sleeping dog decided to spring into action and bit my shorts and then just as quickly, went back to the ground and lay down again. I didn’t have time to check if his tail was tied to a lampost or something but I was just happy that it had stopped trying to attack me.
I then headed back to my bungalow but at around 20 minutes my leg started getting really sore. I ran through it and got back to the apartment about 7 minutes later but close to the end I had to really slow down, I don’t think I could have gone on much longer (For the record, I’m not a time freak, I was just checking my stopwatch a lot as I was hoping to run every day).
Later that night my calf was much sorer but it wasn’t til the next morning I really noticed how bad it was. I was back to limping again. The next day my leg was even worst and it was really sore walking. I’ve never pulled my calf muscle before so I’m still unsure about when you should start training again. I was under the assumption that a light job might help speed up my recovery but clearly my leg is not at that stage yet.
This has changed my plans a little. I was hoping to do some light jogging for a week or so and get to the stage where I could go back to a gym and do some bagwork and light boxing sparring but the best thing for my leg at this stage is rest. Or as I like to call it, boredom!
On a plus note, I felt great during and after my run so my fitness must still be pretty good. I was scared it would have dropped more. My mate Kev suggested cycling. That could be a good option as it puts no pressure on the calf itself, though I could still overstretch it. Swimming remains the best option but I’ve found it difficult to find a place with a good pool for swimming. They are ither too small, too shallow, too busy or part of a hotel which is too damn expensive!