I wake up this morning and it feels like someone has hit the back of my legs with a baseball bat. I can certainly feel the burn from my 25 minute run the other day and I am a little concerned. Have I overdone it and injured myself? I realise that my new style of running is certainly having an impact on my body. My calf's feel really sore. I was expecting that this might be the case as any major exercise that your body is not used to usually brings on DOMS (delayed onset of muscle soreness) in the second day and as per my previous blogs, my calf's were reasonably sore yesterday.
I spend the day doing the shopping whilst wearing my Five Fingers and focus on not trying to walk differently whilst wearing the shoes. I decide that if I truly was wearing bare feet that you would not step with your heel first as that would hurt so I let my body do its own thing and rely on the shoes to let my body do its own thing. I find that relaxing this way allows me to walk around feeling very comfortable but I am slightly concerned about my calf's. I am happy that my feet feel fine and my quads don't feel tight either, it is just my calves that feel like I was doing calve raises all of Thursday evening. When I sit down in the car or at home and then suddenly get up my calf's almost seize up until they seem to get warmed up again. I have had enough of this and decide when I get home that I need to go for a run to see if that will help my calf's.
I decide to do the same run from the other day that seems to have caused the issues with my calf's, and ensure that I am very careful when running down hills as this seems to be where I feel the strain the most as I start the run. I feel a lot more comfortable in the shoes today, I am not heel striking on my left foot as much as I was the other day. I think walking around the shops today has really got me used to wearing the shoes and my body feels comfortable. On the flat my cadence is quick and although my calf's are not getting worse, they are not getting better either. I feel like I am flying on the flat section and then come to the hill that will wind its way back up to home. I am physically feeling good however I can start to feel that in the middle of my right foot it is starting to tighten up. I only have about 800m to go so keep going up the incline to home. Even though I have tight calf's and my right foot is tight, I strangely feel reasonably good. I notice that I am running more upright than I normally do. My shoulders are back and this new position feels good. I finish the run and my calf's are still tight but after a stretch and a hot shower they feel a lot better. As a precaution I put on some Voltaren Gel on both calf's to reduce any inflammation if that is what is causing the pain. My legs don't feel like jelly like they did the other day, maybe I am starting to get used to these things. We will see what tomorrow brings in terms of the condition of my calf's, if all is good maybe another run!
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