Start time: 5/31/07, 9:00pm
Location: Arlington Boulevard Trail
Distance: 3 miles
Average pace: 9:15min/mile

Start time: 6/3/07, 8:00am
Location: Capital Crescent Trail and Georgetown
Distance: 8 miles
Run:Walk Ratio: 10:1
Average pace: 11:00min/mile

So! When we last left off over in this journal, I was getting ready to take some time off from running due to an injury. I saw an orthopaedist and he diagnosed the pain as being a “strained achilles mechanism” which consists of the three muscles in my lower calf. He sent me off to physical therapy, which I started on May 30th. There, the physical therapist did a thorough look over and said, “I think I’ve found your problem. Did you know the big toe on your left foot isn’t flexible?”

Yeah, I know. Not the response I was expecting. Apparently while my right toe can move up about 60 degrees, the left toe gets about a 30 degree range of motion. As a result, when I run I lift my left heel much faster than I should be in order to compensate, and that’s putting a strain on those muscles in my left calf. (Which would explain why all three injuries have been in the left calf and never my right one.) She told me to go out running on Thursday and see how it felt, just 3-5 miles. That run went ok, with a little stiffness and soreness around mile 3. Unfortunately, my dinner did not cooperate with me and I had to stop a mile short of my planned 4 miles, in order to keep from heaving my dinner up all over Arlington Boulevard. (Don’t worry, I didn’t.)

I reported back and she gave me some calf stretches (while still working on the toe) and said it was ok to run this Sunday if I took it easy. Well, I’d already planned on running slower until I got that back up again anyway, so it gave me a great opportunity to run with Julie once again, yay! As an added bonus, Doug was running a recovery run with us. So it was a really nice run in a bit of a drizzle, but nothing to complain about. The 11:00 group takes a one-minute walk break at each mile marker, which was a great way to get back into the swing of things (I wholeheartedly approve). Best of all? No pain while running whatsoever. This gives me hope!