Close but no cigar...

After another couple of days of enforced idleness, I woke up this morning to feel no pain or even tightness in my calf.  I performed the "going downstairs slightly heavily" test, which usually lets me know if anything's amiss, and which gave a feeling of slight tightness but no pain.  Inconclusive would be my self-diagnosis.

So as I had the day off, and I'd completed my chores (surprisingly short for a day when K's at work and I'm not) I decided I'd try a gentle run.

What's interesting is how much a part of my routine running's become - I ran a hard race Sunday, and by Wednesday I was climbing the walls to get out.  One day off yesterday and I was desperate to get back to my training - yet if I look back 18 months I might be lucky to run once a week.  Weird.

Anyway, clobber on, satellites locked, rain drizzling down off I went.  As soon as I started running I could feel tightness, but no pain, and as I headed up towards Halton East I staretd harbouring fantasies of getting a 10, maybe 15 miler in - steady away, you understand...

Common sense kicked in at 2 miles and I decided to come back gradually, so I turned for home in Halton East.  This was fortunate as at about 2 1/2 miles the vague tightness in my calf moved up a notch and became borderline painful.  Still nothing like last October's injury, but I shortened my stride and made my way home gingerly.  If I'm honest it did get slightly worse as I went on, so there's still something not right, but having had some ice on it for 10 minutes there's no pain and the calf isn't even tender to touch, so no harm done.

I'll take my stuff up to the Lakes and maybe see how I go on Sunday, but I think it probably needs another 2 or 3 days before it's right.  Fairly confident I'll be able to do something long and steady on Friday next week, but I'm going to think about adjusting my taper down to 2 weeks and run Coniston as a LR.