Over the weekend I ran Thursday and Saturday, played rounders on Friday and went for a cycle ride on Sunday. While most of the ride was done very gently, and the total time was only 40 minutes or so it did include 2 hard hills, one out of Barns Green and the one up Bashurst Hill to home. As such Monday evening would be my fifth active day in five, and so I really wasn't sure how it was going to go. I wanted to run a day earlier than planned as I'm out of the office for the rest of this week, and so wanted to get it done before I started the long drive twice a day.
While getting changed and ready I had planned to walk the first half mile, as I have done for a lot of my recent runs. However by the time I left the gate I had forgotten and so ran straight off the driveway. This adds the annoyance of crossing the road, and having to run on the side of a hill, which I'm certain isn't good for my calf while it's healing. In order to only do this once I ran out an extra section, and so avoided running back along this part.
Eight minutes in I looked at my watch for the first time, and found myself to be running at an 8:50 min/mile pace with a heart rate of 150. this was a really nice pace for relatively little effort, but I made a concious choice to slow down so as not to risk my continuing recovery.
Needless to say I was very surprised 10 minutes later when despite having slowed down to 10 minute miles my heart rate had apparently climbed to 220 while I felt like I was putting in a similar amount of effort. My heart rate was over 200 for 5 minutes, and this can't have been a true reflection but was some issue with the equipment.
It could be that the monitor wasn't sitting properly on my chest, as several other people had used it in the previous few days and so the strap has been repeatedly adjusted. It's now been tightened up a little more, but it does raise questions over earlier recordings when I though I was truly this high, particularly the Horsham 10k.
As I went right on the down's link instead of left I had to run down, and therefore back up, a sustained slope in order to do the 4 miles without running the wood twice. I expected this to cause calf issues but it seemed to be fine with it, obviously running on the side of hills is worse than running up them.
I finished the run with only a little ache in my calf. This was far better than I had been expecting due to the amount of exercise I had done leading up to it, and in particular the sprints Friday night while playing rounders.
The following morning I did ache a little though, and so took a couple of Ibuprofen. I'm never sure if anti-inflammatories help or hinder when it comes to injury. Previously I avoided taking them at all costs, but I'm now going to trial taking them immediately after running while I'm still injured unless the entire run is pain free. Obviously this is by no means scientific, but I'll let you know how it goes.
Distance: 4.04 miles
Time: 39:49
Pace: 09:51 min/mile
Heart Rate: 165 bpm
Map: Here
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