Painful reminders

One of the golden rules of marathon training (or, I imagine, training for any specific race or event) is to do all of your experimentation during your training program so that race day simply becomes a matter of executing what's already been tried and tested. This applies to fueling and hydrating yourself before and during the event, testing every last item of clothing that you think you may possibly need to wear on race day, knowing how many hours of sleep you need for optimal performance on the road, and properly estimating how much time and coffee you need to get ready and achieve optimal performance in the bathroom. A related rule states that you should probably refrain from trying any new activities or sports during the few crucial weeks before race day, lest you tear a muscle, break a leg, or otherwise injure yourself. Skiing is bad because you could really mess up your knee (I have a few too many coworkers who have suffered meniscus tears on the slopes for my liking), and cycling could land you with a broken wrist or severely torn elbow (been there, done that). As I learned this weekend, you should also refrain from trying any new dance moves during marathon training, because (a) you'll look like an idiot, and (b) it can really hurt your calves.

We just returned from a lovely Easter weekend north of the border where we mostly ate, drank, laughed, talked, and, as it happened, danced with my in-laws. It was a great weekend and we were blessed with superbly sunny skies for both Saturday and Sunday. On Friday I managed to lay pretty low and kept to a two drink maximum on the eve of our long run. Even a 20 minute walk on Friday seemed like a lot of work to me -- it's amusing that I can be so lazy when my schedule permits it! Saturday morning turned out to be a gloriously sunny day and, best of all, this was a recovery week that called for a simple 13 miles. It's pretty amazing how, after weeks of 18+ mile long runs (and every third one at race pace), an easy 13 miles truly feels like a walk in the park. Zdenek and I ran together, in equal measure against the wind and with the breeze at our backs, and the beautiful sunshine and fact that we were, technically, "on vacation," propelled us to a pace that was a good 20 seconds per mile faster than necessary. Finishing 13 miles together feeling refreshed and happy was a lovely treat!

Since the rest of the weekend was scheduled "rest time" (I jammed all of my runs and cross-training sessions into the week before), the end of that 13 miles was the green light to eat, drink, and be merry. After a relaxing day filled with delicious food and drink, Saturday night found us slightly tipsy and looking to make fools of ourselves. Well, we didn't set out to make fools of ourselves, but that's what ended up happening. As is usually the case at my in-laws' house, we migrated down to the basement bar shortly after dinner. There, my father-in-law proceeded to pump out some combination of Neil Diamond, Eddie Money, and Boney M, while a strobe light pulsated in the corner (I kid you not). And we danced. Or at least, jumped around and threw our hands in the air in some form of movement that approximated a mixture of polka and Sweatin' to the Oldies. And for some reason, I felt that the more air I got, the better I must have been "dancing", and so I pretty much jumped around the room until my arches hurt (a mild nag in my plantar fascia which I've been stretching and icing to keep at bay) and I decided that I needed another drink. It continued on like this for some time, until the drinking periods started to outlast the dancing ones.



Sunday morning found my calves permanently clenched into some sort of tight mass, a feeling I've never once experienced in training, no matter how many miles I log in one week. I winced getting out of bed, I thanked my lucky stars that I didn't have to run that day, and sometime at around 4 am this morning, the nagging tightness caused me to readjust my weekly schedule in a half-awake state. Rather than subjecting my legs to further torture with a scheduled 11 miler this morning, I made the decision to try to ease my damaged gastrocnemius muscles back into running with a five mile fartlek. (Tomorrow, 11 miles, whether I like it or not.) In fact, I only remember ever feeling this type of pain in my calves back when I first started running routinely, somewhere around 2001. Back then I believed that the more I bounced, the more gazelle-like -- and therefore graceful -- I must have appeared. I continued on this way for a couple of years until I realized that my sore calves and aching knees were probably due to all the unnecessary air time. There's a different cause for my tight calves this time around, but it's no less painful. In any case, it was a relatively safe reminder that it's best not to try anything new in the weeks before the race, and that, as captured in these photos, I still have a long way to go in the "grace" department.