Without a doubt 2008 was my most productive year of running, just an awesome year full of great challenging races and lots of PR’s. Well, 2009 is slowly starting to stagger 180 degrees off awesome. The year started out ok, but I’ve been fighting a left calf injury for a little over a month now. This has put a huge dent in my training and is giving me a bad attitude.
Last Saturday I ran the Mini Marathon. The calf felt ok at the start, but I was afraid it could give me trouble. For the first few miles I was on pace to hit my goal, but by mile 4 I starting thinking I wouldn’t have the stamina to maintain that pace. Then at mile 6 the calf started acting up. I probably could have pushed myself a little harder, but with the Dances With Dirt 50k coming up this Saturday I decided it was smarter to try and save myself. That was one of the smarter decisions I’ve made in quite a while. I finished the run and posted my slowest half marathon time since 2003. The day after the Mini my calf felt great. On Tuesday I ran six miles. I wouldn’t say the calf was 100%, but it was ok. The lack of training was proving to be a tougher hurdle. Then today I ran another six miles and felt much better. Without even trying I ran the course almost four minutes faster. Calf felt pretty good.
So now the big question is, do I take it easy this Saturday or do I push myself? Smart thing would probably be to start out slow and then if I still feel good 20 miles out start to kick it up a notch. Of course taking it easy at the start of a race has never been my forte.
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