A pain in the leg

So I was going to write about my hip and how, after a long run, I feel pain. I was going to write about how I discovered that running on country roads where there's a high crown can lead to problems in the IT band on your left side if you run facing traffic. I was going to write about how I discovered if I ran on the other side of the road, with traffic, the pain in my left hip went away.

I was going to write about all of that. But now that story has to wait. I've got a bigger pain to worry about, this time in my calf.

It all starts with a pop. I'm running along, as I was tonight, and I can feel and sort of hear (though that latter is probably in my head) a "popping" sound. It's the sound of my calf muscle, wound tighter than a drum as always, pulling or tearing or something to that effect. When it happens, as it has several times before, my heart sinks because I know it means several days, or perhaps weeks, of recuperation.

My recovery depends largely on the severity of the pop. A little one means a little discomfort. It means lots of extra stretching and some stiffness each morning. But a big pop is worse. A big pop means my calf swells up to twice its normal size. It means I can barely walk, let alone run, for a week or more.

No amount of stretching beforehand seems to help prevent the pop. It just happens. Like tonight. I was just running along on the treadmill, not terribly fast, just moving at a nice steady pace. I was shooting for seven miles, but by Mile 5 I was feeling so good I thought I might run a little longer, nine or even 10 miles. I was watching the Texas v. Oklahoma basketball game on the TV above my head and I was thinking about the ING half-marathon I'm planning to run in Atlanta in a little more than a month with my good buddy from college.

And then came the pop and all of my thoughts went to my leg. As is usually the case, I can still run on my damaged calf; it's afterward when the pain really sinks in. So I ran a little bit more hoping I had imagined it, hoping the problem wasn't really a problem at all. No such luck. I shut the machine down after 6.2 miles and attempted to stretch. The problem is, the pull is so deep inside the leg I have yet to find a stretch that really gets to the root of the problem.

It's now been a few hours since the pop, and I'm sitting here on my couch waiting to see what the outcome of this pop will be. So far, it seems like this one may be rather minor, but it may be too soon to tell. Tomorrow morning will reveal a lot.

Until then, I'll keep stretching and cursing my muscles.