No pressure...

Last night I had some fun, had some beers and only made it to day-13 of my 21-day no beer challenge. The reason I had some beers was because I felt it had some value. It relaxes and reduces my stress levels.

The more I've been thinking of my calf injury the more I think it's stress induced. I watched a video on calf problems and often it can start in the lower back, everything tightens and it can run down the entire leg to the calf's. My psychology was that I was fine before going on the beer challenge, perhaps there is something in the beer that gives me a vital nutrient I need or just relaxes me.

From a nutrient standpoint, I do seriously wonder if it has any effect. The therapist said it may be caused from a potassium, calcium or salt / electrolytes deficiency. I can't see that, I eat more banana's than most monkeys, I've been pigging out on ice cream and KFC is great for salt content. Knowing I got those foods in me, I thought more that it may be stress, I have a lot of that in my life right now.

The upside of going for a long bike, drinking half a water bottle, eating next to nothing all day and drinking 14 Coors Light tall boys is you wake up lighter, from dehydration. I stepped on the scale this morning when I woke up, er, I mean, this afternoon when I woke up and I was 182.4 lbs. That's my fighting weight. I lost 8 lbs in one day. I know it's water weight, but I don't care, you have no idea how great it looked to see those magic numbers of 182.4 on that scale. It gave me hope.

I was up at noon and the day was a lazy day. Watched some TV, put together a video from last night and the one that Reid took of me when they picked me up injured, tweeted, updated my food diary and hoped to go for a short 30 minute run in the evening. I wanted to try out my calf again. This time I was going to use some Rock Tape. I bought the tape quite a while ago and never used it, it sat in my drawer. For some reason I remembered I had it, I near forgot, and decided now was the perfect time to use it.

Prior to my run and throughout the day was was running in the house a little, from the family room to the living room. I wanted to test it. I know Alice and the kids look at me strange when I do this. Oh, and this afternoon Shaw came by to pick up his hard drive he dropped off. I have 58,000 songs and I downloaded them for him. He was the person that got me motivated to go out in yesterdays miserable weather, he tweeted he was going in it. It turns out he bailed and seemed a little jealous and in awe that I went for 5 hours. He said his friend went and he saw him at one point when he drove by him. He said his friend had a grimace on his face and looked frozen and wet. I kind of knew that feeling, although I didn't have the grimace. He too said his friend said it was windy and had a low average speed, I was glad to hear that, it just wasn't me.

After some You Tube video watching on how to use the rock tape, I put it on. It's a lot harder to put on yourself than  it looks. From yesterday to today the weather changed dramatically, it started snowing in the evening after my ride. Which is a bummer, I wanted to ride again outside on Monday if it was possible.

I was out the door around 8:15 pm and my entire focus was to run slow and RELAXED. I wanted to remove any stress I was feeling. The tapes seemed to work, I didn't feel anything major. In fact, I was feeling more knots on my other leg than the injured one. I was actually surprised how fast I ran overall considering the first part of my run was a slow 5:55 pace.

It was a great confidence boost knowing I was able to run 30 minutes and not have the calf seize up. Tomorrow I have one more session with the physio and my next run is scheduled for Tuesday. Hopefully between the beer, the physio and the rock tape I'll be back on the road to full run training.

Derek's recent comment about the stop and start bike riding all day the Sunday prior to the injury did get me thinking that perhaps that did have something to do to it. I didn't stretch that day between sessions or after I was done, I was too mentally burnt out. Did it stress the muscles too much???

Food wise, I've been in much more control for the past couple days. Beer effects? Maybe. I find that if I eat healthy stuff before snacking on the crap, I lose the cravings, unless I'm bored.

Finally, big shout out to Simon ( @tritwins) for his first place finish at Xterra Philippines. He qualified and is going to the World Championships in Maui. Good job bro.

Easy Jog - 32:55 / 6.01 km / 5:28 avg pace