Tag: injury

Strengthening the Calf Muscles

Jess GuthLeave a comment

We ran 4.25 miles today. Just had to get that in eventhough this post isn’t about that!

My injury was due to my calf muscles, or more accurately, my right calf muscle being too weak. Actually  it still is too weak. My osteopath recommended a very very simple exercise for which you need no equipment and very little time: Heel raises. So while my calf muscle was still recovering he recommended doing heel raises using both legs at the same time – so basically standing with your feet evenly placed and raising yourself up until standing on your tiptoes and then lowering yourself back down in a controlled way (you can hold onto something for balance). Now though I am supposed to do this standing on one leg – apparently people should be able to do about 20 one leg controlled heel raises generally and runners should aim to be able to do 30. I am currently aiming for 5 without falling over.

The heel raise exercise does get slightly obsessive. I did 20 while in the supermarket queue and I keep doing it when standing in corridors, offices, at the roadside etc talking to people – usually both legs at the same time though. It’s so easy and yet so effective. There are loads of clips on YouTube showing how to do them but the osteopath recommended just doing them on a flat surface/floor and not on the edge of a step as many seem to suggest. He did recommend standing on the edge of a step and pushing your heel down for stretching the calf muscle but I think those two exercises should be seperate so as not to risk injury – I might be wrong there of course but doing them seperately works for me.

Next on the list is to make time for yoga using a yoga app I recently downloaded. It has several 15 minute programmes at different levels. I’ll let you know once I finally get round to building those into a routine properly!

Back on the Road #2

Jess Guth4 Comments

So my last blog about running was on the 9th May when I was trying not to be grumpy about the injury to my calf muscle. I missed the appointment with the Osteopath and had to re-book for yesterday. I didn’t run at all from 3rd May to the 17th May. I was just a little scared of getting back on the road again. I spent Thursday- Saturday in London for work last week and when I got back Saturday evening I was actually looking forward to getting out. I was nervous about my calf though. It was still a little tight and the osteopath had said he wanted to see me again before advising on when I could run again. Yeah ok so I am rubbish at doing as I am told. So here’s what we’ve done since the 17th, all on the flat along the canal as per osteopath instructions and all using intervals of 90 seconds running and 30 seconds walking.

17th May – 30 minutes, 2.2 miles

It actually felt good to be out and the running felt doable

18th May – 30 minutes, 2.22 miles

Felt a bit sluggish but got stronger towards the end. Enjoyed it once it was over!

20th May – 30 minutes, 2.3 miles

We spent the day at the RSPB reserve at Bempton Cliffs so had done a lot of walking during the day and then went for a run afterwards. I thought we would be quite slow because of that and because the first two runs made my lungs feel like they were on fire. There was another running interval around 20 minutes that felt really hard but we managed a really strong positive finish. Happy with that!

21st May  – 30 minutes, 2.28 miles

I saw the Osteopath in the morning. He examined my leg again and said it felt much better. After a bit of treatment he advised that running was fine but to take it easy and not to push myself on speed or distance for roughly 6 weeks. So, I am allowed to run but the strengthening exercises he has shown me are going to be key to avoiding repetition of the injury. (More on them another time). So, running it was then – after work feeling tired and generally a bit grumpy. From the first beep of the watch every little bit of me was screaming ‘Nooooo…. just no’. My legs felt heavy and my lungs were burning. I was huffing and puffing after the first 90 seconds of running. Somehow, and I am really not quite sure how, I made it through 8 of the 15 repetitions; we turned round. Usually I quite like heading back along the canal – it means at least half is done but this time it just didn’t seem possible to run back to pretty much where we started. Mind over matter… another running interval done… 10 intervals done and that stupid little nagging voice would not shut up: “I’m not a runner, I can’t do this, this is stupid, I’m NOT a runner’. And walk… 11 out of 15 runs done, breathe. No really breathe. I pretty much dragged myself through the next 2 runs with Kath’s constant and brilliant encouragement (I hope we never get to the point where she finds the runs so hard she doesn’t have enough left to talk me through the tough moments!). What I was doing can’t really be described as running, it was more plodding, plodding very slowly. Then the worst was over and when the watch beeped after run 14 I felt strangely competitive so I kept going and we ran the last 4 minutes. Hated it. Properly hated it. Just like old times. But it did feel good to have done it

Trying not to be grumpy

Jess Guth3 Comments

I’ve been quiet for a week or so. There’s a reason for that. I haven’t been running. After getting back on the road after the tweak to my calf muscle I was feeling quite good about the whole running thing. Then 5 days ago I was rounding up our friend’s sheep and re-tweaked the calf muscle. It was so frustrating. She sheep were being awkward sods so to cut them off and try and get them to go through the gate they were supposed to go through I needed to move quickly up hill – I pushed off my right leg, it’s been sore since.

Two days ago I went to see an osteopath. Kath has been seeing one for ages because of her dodgy back and I went to see the same one last year with a hip problem and she was fantastic. I couldn’t get an appointment with her quickly but there was someone in the same practice who could see me (Farfield House Clinic in Keighley).

I don’t like going for any kind of medical appointment. Maybe that’s a lifetime of being told by medical practitioners that I could do with losing a bit of weight (no shit! Really? I hadn’t noticed I was a bit on the porky side) so I was a little apprehensive going. I thought that the osteopath might just tell me that running really wasn’t a good idea for someone as heavy as me and that the injury was inevitable given my weight etc. I needn’t have worried. He sat me down, listened to the running story so far, had a look at my legs, checked a few things by asking me to stretch and move in particular ways and then we had a chat about what the most likely cause of the pain was: strained calf muscle. A typical but not serious running injury. Not serious as long as it is left to heal properly now – otherwise they quickly become recurring which he said was just boring. He has a point. So, after a bit of message-type work on my hamstring and calf muscle, he showed me two stretching exercises – one for calves and one for hamstrings and a strengthening exercise for calf muscles. So if you see me stopping on any steps and pushing my heel down or standing around randomly raising myself onto my toes, don’t be alarmed. I am no more mad than usual.

I am going back to see him on Tuesday at which point he will tell me when I can run again. He seemed to understand my impatience and frustration and he seemed genuinely interested in getting me back to running as soon as possible without risking further injuriy. It was certainly  a lot better than going to my doctor and coming away with a pack of neurofen and ‘don’t run for a week’ sort of advice.

Progress…? Not so much

Jess Guth1 Comment

Frustrating. Very frustrating. I am now sitting on our sofa watching the London Marathon coverage and I pretty much feel like I just want to cry. I am of course being over dramatic. We set off for our 3.5 miles run this morning. We walked down to the canal and then set off towards Bingley. We got to just over 1 mile and I tweaked something in my right calf muscle. I kept going through that run and stretched it out in the walk interval and then started running again but it felt really tight and weird. We stopped and walked back. I was really upset about that and Kath was clearly frustrated that we couldn’t complete the run so we walked back in rather grumpy silence.

I have stretched and had some ice on it and it is beginning to ease. Let’s see how it goes. Maybe we can try again tomorrow. If it’s no better I will be making an appointment with our osteopath to take a look. I think though I am struggling more mentally with the setback. Running is such a huge deal for me and I feel so insecure about the whole thing that any setback is really really hard to get my head round. 3.5 miles not done, right calf tight and a bit sore, Jess tearful and grumpy… I guess tomorrow is another day.