This last week has been one containing both huge successes and a lot of promise and also quite considerable disappointment and resignation of the inevitable. The week started with me continuing our annual family holiday, this year down in Busselton. Building upon the successes experienced last week I kept up my regular running routine which include my longest run so far on the Monday, completing 25.12km in just over two hours. I was absolutely elated with this, as it bested my previous best distance by a good 3km. Even better, I didn’t pull up too sore or fatigued, giving me optimism that it would still be possible for me to achieve my goal of 700km for the duration of the 90 day challenge.
For all the positives of Monday, Tuesday quickly unravelled this. I had decided to be doing lighter run and only completing at the most 12km for the day. During the run, I felt really good so decided to keep going and complete a longer distance, thinking that it might be possible for me to complete another half marathon distance. Everything felt great until just after the 14km mark when I was running into a head wind and felt my left calf start to tighten up. This has been my troublesome leg for the past ten years, however I knew that I hadn’t pulled anything so reduced my speed and reconsidered my distance – I still had 3km to go before I would be able to be back at the accomodation and I knew the additional for the 21.1km would not be worth the risk. I managed to get back unscathed, but with an exceptionally tight calf and spent the rest of the day with soreness through the muscles and regardless of what a tired I couldn’t release the muscle.
I didn’t manage to run for the remainder of the week, the muscles didn’t release despite my stretching and massaging it throughout the rest of the week days. On Friday I felt that I had some success in releasing it via step downs once we had returned to Perth. Still, I didn’t want to risk a run due to feeling that keeping going throughout the summer is more important than missing a few days. Unfortunately, those few days will have a significant consequence in it now not being possible for me to make the desired 700km before the end of the 90 days. I imagine that I will come up less than 100km short, a distance I would have covered this week. I have also found myself just short of the 200km milestone for December. Hopefully, I will get back out on the track before too long hopefully on Sunday this week) in which case I will be able to break that 200km mark!
