Hyland Post #3: Marathon Training continues

3 miles on the schedule today....nope.  I had to take an additional day of rest today.

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Here's a recap of week #2 of 18 weeks of marathon training:

Miles Run:  25.34
Days Run:  5
Cross Training:  None
Time Training:  3 and 1/2 hours

No cross training this week.  On Saturday's long run, I pulled my calf muscle.  Ouch!  It's very sore.  I'm not really sure what I did.  Overuse?  I doubt it.  Run to fast?  Not really.  Anyway, this led to no cross training this past week.  Instead I'm doing RICE.  For those of you that don't know R.I.C.E. stands for Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation.  It's always helped me in the past and will likely help me for this as well.  I've also added two things to the recovery process:  1)  Using my foam roller on the calf.  It really helps improve the circulation in my calf just like a massage.  2)  A little Muscle Therapy Gel with Arnica from Hyland's this time around to help with the soreness and help speed my recovery.  I've used Hyland's a couple times over the last couple months and it seems to help the soreness plus it's natural.

While I've had minor aches and pains, I've never had anything very serious.  Probably the worst I ever had was pain on my IT Band(knee) back in 2010.  That pain was WAY worse than anything I've ever experienced and literally stopped me from running for several days.  This calf pull is nothing compared to that.  I'm sure I'll be back as new by the next long run but will probably be running a little slower this week.

Speaking of that, I have a cut back week coming up in regards to my long run.  I only have 6 on the schedule this coming weekend.  Perhaps it's just what I needed.  The cut back week is meant to allow your muscles to recover - perfect timing I guess.  Then it will be upping the mileage again.

Have a great day and....Keep Running!!!!!