I've got my legs back!.. thanks for the advice..

[poulet]

Thanks to this forum I got some good advice when my lower calves caused me some real problems at the very end of the w6 r3. So I didn't run for 4 days (twitch, twitch) to let them properly recover and repeated w6 r2 yesterday evening.

This time, as advised by the good folk on here, I drank a glass of water about half an hour before I went out, didn't do any stretching beforehand (apparently likely to do more harm than good as I was doing this before Laura's brisk warm up walk!), but stretched carefully and thoroughly at the end. I also armed myself with ibruprofen and arnica gel for afterwards.

So this is the day after the run - and my legs feel great - none of the soreness/having to walk like I've wet myself/blanching at the thought of coming down stairs like last time - just that lovely gentle 'i've been doing exercise' ache.

I'm so relieved - couldn't bear the idea of having to stop running for a couple of weeks (that alone shows how far I've come!!). Thanks for the help

[RhonaL]

Hmm - it's official you are hooked. Getting twichy about not being able to run...glad your calves are behaving.

[Oldgirl Graduate]

Well done, its good that you've been able to get a run in again with no after pain, smashing result. Its also interesting what you said about the stretching before a run, I read somewhere years ago that you shouldn't stretch when your body is cold as it does more damage than good so never have but was looking at loads of the runners at our local Parkrun last week, many of which were stretching out before the run! I'll continue to stretch after and just use a warm up walk before hand. One thing I also noticed was it was nearly all men doing the stretching.

Good luck for a pain free journey through the rest of the programme.