Hmmm...

Really not sure what to think about my calf today (sorry if I'm sounding obsessed, but I am a bit) - slept with a compression sock on last night and whilst the lower bit of my calf was fine this morning it now seems quite tight higher up - perhaps a bit of DOMS from the first run for ages yesterday?  Maybe.

To be on the safe side, and to take advantage of the best day of weather of the week I decided to bike in today and leave the running til tomorrow after more consultation and beard stroking from John the fizzy (who doesn't have a beard).  We went in fairly hard and I managed to drop l'Herb on the stretch from Snaygill to Cross Hills which is always a sign I'm going ok.  Not our quickest ride in but memorable for two reasons - it was my first commute of the year without a jacket on (arm/leg warmers and lifa top under my jersey, but still almost springlike gear) and l'Herb being in shorts (and being very, very cold...).

As I arrived at work Linz happened to drop into the conversation that it had forecast rain later - not according to bloody Look North it hadn't, so not only had I not worn a jacket, I hadn't brought one either.  Sure as eggs is eggs, at about 4:30 it started to drizzle stubbornly as the sky darkened.  And then to put the tin lid on it K asked me to rush home as she had college - so it was the valley route home as well.  Yuk.

I was on my own due to Herb doing late afternoon pointy head things so I got my head down and hammered home, and was surprised to see I got home slightly quicker than I went in this morning - unheard of.  Average speed coming home was almost 19mph, which is way faster than usual, so at least something's working ok.  I got bloody drenched of course...

My calf's quite stiff, but the injury site seems pain free - if I can get round Coniston ok on Saturday then I may even pack the running in til Blackpool and take my chances on having retained enough gas to get 3:15 - but if Blackpool's not a goer then I think I've decided that Abingdon will be the target as I'm not convinced another couple of weeks would be long enough to get back to full training so Chester would be off the agenda (especially given the amount of cycling I'm going to have to do to survive the Etape).