"Owwww!" My left calf said. "Careful, yer big klutz!". I was being admonished again by my legs. Running has been going spiffingly lately, but two days ago one of my calves started to whinge slightly. In a total overreaction (I'm prone to these) I purchased a foam roller from Amazon for a tenner. "I'm gonna roll my legs and tell 'em who's da boss!" I thought. I ordered a blue one. Very manly. I received a pink one. A bloody PINK ONE! Anyway, sod it, it's only me using it in our house. It's not as though I'm going to parade around outside with my big pink foam roller!!
Can't honestly say what the hell it did or indeed whether I felt any different, but I headed outside in my running clobber, a full 9lbs lighter since me and "My Fatness Pal" got it on, on New Years Day. My fitness levels are now pretty good. I'm finding my distance of 5K pretty manageable these days which can only be down to doing it thrice weekly. Today, with Mr Calf moaning a bit, I finished my warm up walk and set off on my jog / shuffle / lumpy run.
"Ooh! Ow! Oooh! Aagghh!" was the reaction from my legs for the first two minutes. What the hell I must have looked like only God knows, but who cares!! After a couple of minutes my legs were FINE! They'd warmed up nicely and I felt no niggles whatsoever. "See? Yer stupid legs" I said. "You just needed to warm up. Now don't let me down or you're both back on my big pink foam stick!"
K1 and K2 I was purring. Also K3 zoomed by, and as I ran beside the Thames I thought that not so long ago I was having such awful problems - wrong shoes, one leg shorter than the other, horridious cholesterol meds which made me feel ghastly and a general loss of all things mojo! Not today though.
I started to tire a bit at the start of K4 and wondered whether I should have a walkette? "Nahhh! Keep going Dan" I decided. Before long I'd finished the 4th K and was tonking along towards K5. Each K was under 6 minutes so I was in for a sub 30 without pushing myself too hard. I might even see if I can toddle along to a 6th K if Mr Legs agree. On I ran, up the hill towards and past Twickenham train station, down the other side and took the right turn towards home. Suddenly in headphones - "You have reached your goal" was announced in a rather pleasing 29'13 for 5K. "That'll do" I said. "Now come on you sweating, red faced tomato on legs, let's give it 6K! COME ON!".
I cursed myself for such reckless bravado as my legs were now tiring badly and I slowed to an extremely slow crawl like pace. But I didn't care cos I was still moving, putting one leg in front of the other and getting closer to home. At the 6th K I stopped and decided to walk from here. I couldn't go on any longer and my attempt at a "brisk" walk home was laughable! It was more of a painful, stiff legged hobble affair and I decided that despite my legs performing like little beauties today, they were gonna get the PINK treatment when I got home.
As the jacuzzi filled up, I contorted my body into foam roller shapes and grimaced at the agony of it all. Before long though, the old pins were a bit more supple. Perhaps this roller thing is a good thing - if you can put up with the "Ouch, ooh, aaaghh!" noises!!
Well, you know what they say - "No pain. No gain!"
I think I need one of those foam rollers too, preferably pink!
Stiff legs....
For Bazza. Photos from the start and finish line.
Wk6 R2 -- Great Start, Hard Finish
Foam rolling????
