On Saturday I completed my second parkrun at Walsall Arboretum. Although I felt like I ran a lot faster and put in more effort, my time was only 20 seconds faster than the previous week.

“Congratulations on completing your 2nd parkrun and your 2nd at Walsall Arboretum today. You finished in 88th place and were the 19th lady out of a field of 144 parkrunners and you came 7th in your age category SW30-34. Take a look at this week’s full set of results on our website. Congratulations on setting a new Personal Best by 20 seconds at Walsall Arboretum parkrun! Congratulations on setting a new Years Best time today”.

I know that I shouldn’t complain about setting a PB. I’m not sure how I was only 20 seconds faster than the week before (I’ll stop moaning about my time now). Someone also took a cracking photo of me. The photo clearly shows how I don’t land correctly on my right foot.

[Photo: Ron Reynolds]

After the parkrun I noticed that my calf muscles felt sore.

On Sunday I completed the Great Midlands Fun Run. My calf muscles felt quite tight so I wore my calf guards. A major mistake and I’ll be staying away from the calf guards in future. I’m sure they are fine to use in most cases, I just have fragile legs.

For the first time ever there is photographic evidence of me taking part. I was flicking through some photos on the Birmingham Mail’s website and suddenly there I was running out of the centre of Sutton Coldfield.

[Photo: Birmingham Mail]

According to my Garmin I completed the run in approx. 01:25:16 which equates to just over 10 min/miles. The official results aren’t out until tomorrow. I was pretty pleased with my time considering it is a hilly 8.5 mile route and I’ve done (a) no hill training and (b) no runs over 6ish miles.

However, when I was waiting for the train, I noticed that the bottom of my left leg (underneath the calf guard) felt really, really sore. My skin felt really warm when I touched it and I immediately knew that I had somehow managed to injure myself.

Unfortunately, on Monday morning my fears were confirmed. My left lower leg and calf muscles were really painful, walking had suddenly become an issue. On Tuesday I had been planning on going to the running club for a training session but I could hardly walk. By Wednesday I was feeling desperate so I called into the Midland Physiotherapy Clinic and luckily Andy said that he could fit me in at 4pm. Same day service, I can’t complain about that!

At 4pm I hobbled over to the Clinic, gave Andy an outline of my running week and pointed to the injury location. It turns out that the calf guards had possibly contributed to my injury as had running up the hills in during the Fun (?) Run. I explained that I only wore the calf guards as my inserts rubbed my feet and caused blisters when I wore my compression socks.

I have been told no running for 2 weeks to allow the swelling over the tendon to go down.

I’ve also been told to take ibuprofen and to ice my leg to see if that helps reduce the swelling. On Monday morning at 9am I’ve got another appointment to see how the injury is doing. So, no parkrun or Aldridge 10km, hopefully I’ll be back running in time to do the Shenstone Fun Run on June 23rd. I’ve also booked an appointment for next Wednesday with the foot specialist Andy recommended. I’m determined to sort these niggles/injuries out for good.

Hopefully I wont be stuck on the injury bench for too long.