On the DL

This past weekend, I was back "home" visiting my parents in Wisconsin.  I eagerly headed out on Sunday for a long run.  I was hoping for 10, happy with 8.  In the week since my marathon, I had only run once, so I was anxious to let my legs fly.  I mapped out a neat course circling the scenic little river town of Omro.

It was a chilly 33 degrees at 7:00am. I pulled on my brand new Quad Cities Marathon jacket and I was ready to go.  Within the first mile, I felt a throbbing in my left calf muscle.  But I really wanted to check out the new fitness trail on the other side of town, so I pushed onward... past my old church, the cheese house, up and over the bridge, my childhood home, the high school... and then IT happened.  It was like someone grabbed my left leg and threw me to the ground.  I was done.  I limped across town and back to my car, feeling completely humiliated.

I've been a basket case ever since.  Yesterday, I moped around the house, breaking down in tears as I gazed outside at the beautiful fall day.  Feeling totally depressed, I demolished a roll of cookie dough.  ugh.  I got a brief stint of "suck it up" and did some crunches, spidermans and pushups (to work off that cookie dough...).

After two days of rest, icing, rolling and gentle stretching, the calf muscle is improving.  Not run-able yet, but healing enough for me to know it's not serious.  I'm holding out hope for the weekend.  It's absolutely perfect running weather here in Illinois this week, and I'm missing out on my favorite season.  I can hardly even stand Facebook today... reading friends' posts about their awesome runs.

The one benefit of injury is that I finally had free time to write my marathon recap.  For some reason, my new blog posts aren't showing up on the Blogger dashboard (help anyone?).  So if you missed my Marathon Race Recap, click here to read the details of my proudest race adventure yet!  Also don't forget to sign up for The Cupcake Classic virtual race later this month.