A rest week...

This last week was a planned rest week, as I am trying to achieve a training cadence of 3 weeks hard & ramping followed by a rest week with lower volume.  The plan was to do 60 miles this week;  as it worked out the timing was convenient as it was necessary for me to fly out to Japan early  on Monday, Memorial day for business.  I arrived Tuesday evening Japan time.  Monday /Tuesday training was therefore  out (I haven't seen a hotel in Japan with a treadmill or fitness center yet);  I did get in an hour run in a park in Kyoto early Wednesday morning, and a 2 hr run early morning run on Thursday out in the country.  That run was cool as I followed a river some distance though mixed farm/residential areas and caught a warm summer morning rain.

One thing I noticed though was the calves were really tight after getting off the plane.  The runs did me some good but towards the end of the 2hr  run the right medial soleus was a bit tender at the head of the gastroc...not the old calf-heart-attack, but nonetheless, a sign of some kind of strain or overuse.  One mistake:  I left the foam roller at home as I wanted to avoid checking luggage.

I flew back Thursday afternoon, landing Thursday afternoon  in LA (gotta love international date lines) and was too cashed with jet lag to run.  I did a double work out Friday and decided to extend my noon warmup walk because of the tender calf.  Ran 14 on Saturday up Brown mountain..again still sore;  and today I  cut off my sunday run early, at 18 miles,  due to the calf issue.  On the plus side, I ran in the Ascend Gloves for the long Sunday run and it reaffirmed how much I love those shoes.  Feet were comfy the whole way including the steep descents, in contrast to the Saturday run over similar terrain which left the feet feeling fairly worked (I'd run in the Trail Gloves).

The next 2 days I will walk rather than run and see how it progresses.  I can still run, but the calf is on the wrong side of the border between hard training and incipient injury.  I am working it with the foam roller and wearing compression socks.