Step by step, mile by mile

4 in the morning, wanted to do a long run but had a chest cramp I couldn't work through. Cleaning up my diet starting today so no more ice cream/pizza/cookout hangover cramps from here on out. In the afternoon I did 8 miles with the first 4 in 25:25, then a 5:41, then I remembered I wanted to do a workout tomorrow so I jogged the last 3. First 5 didn't feel too hard. I though doing 3:20 kilo repeats were out of my range a week or two ago, maybe not.

4 easy in the morning + strides and drills. Felt good, 6:33 avg pace. Finally doing faster stuff this afternoon!

3 mile WU, 1000m, 800m, 600m w/ 400 jogging rec in 3:17, 2:31, 1:47, 1 CD

I suspected with around 600 days of no real workouts I'd probably need a rust buster workout or two, and 200m into the 1000m I knew I was right. Managed to hang on and run some okay times without giving too much. That 600m wasn't balls out but was definetly around the limit of how quickly my legs can move right now. Ran on the soccer fields, first time running on grass in forever and I forgot how it saps some of the force from your stride. Drove home, had some sweet tea and about an hour later I went and jogged 3 more with strides

So, that third run of the day was a mistake on my part. For further reference on doing 3 runs a day, spacing time to recover between each is important. Anyway right after mile 3 of run 3 yesterday I felt some pain/soreness on my outer left calf so I immediately called it there. It really wasn't much pain, but I pride myself in knowing what pain to run through and what pain to heed. Got a good night of sleep and as of this morning don't feel it anymore unless I do deep calf stretching, so I'll take today off and probably bike and do the gym routine tomorrow morning an do a shorter run in the evening if it continues to feel good, and use the rest of the week to build gradually to 12 a day, then try to get another 90 next week.

Went to the gym in the afternoon. Did probably my best upper body workout to date, probably time to start using 35's which seems big to me because that's what my dad would always curl in the garage when I was a kid. Then did some really good hip/leg work without using the calves too much, and some good core too.

10 min jog

So, yesterday's jog was a mistake(I knew it would be too(I was supposed to just bike) but I was just super antsy to run). It wasn't a huge one, I felt completely fine for 10 minutes and took a step and felt it, it went away after a couple of steps but I stopped there. I probably could have been good to go if I had took another 24 or 36 hours off, but now I'm back to where I was Tuesday recovery-wise. I'm okay though, gonna play it safe and start up again Saturday evening or Sunday. Overall a good learning experience this week, I'll be smarter for it. I am happy that it came from pushing a third run of the day too early so I have a direct cause-and-effect and that it didn't just come from the normal everyday stuff. I was a little unmotivated to run after finals and this got me super amped to run again so silver-lining. anyway

 I went to the gym today and biked for about a half hour, and got some good lifting and core in, I hope I have the time to keep the gym sessions up this summer. Wanted to bike for like 2 hours but was worried to could aggravate the calf but it felt fine. Hopefully don't lose too much fitness from 5 days off

Same thing as yesterday. Can do all of my normal reps with 30's no problem now. 

taking today totally off to make sure the calf strain's healed up, but plan on running tomorrow. Hopefully got the right recovery estimate this time!