My lower leg injury - sporting the one-calf-guard-on-one-calf-guard-off look

Looking back over recent blog articles and entries in my training diary, I noticed quite how often I've been mentioning the problems with my right lower leg. So I thought I'd devote a whole article to talking about what's been going on and what I've been doing about it.

It started on day 2 of our Isle of Wight run. Early on in the day, before I was properly warmed up, I suddenly experienced an intense muscular sensation in the top right of my right calf. It was totally different to any injury I'd had before.

Looking back I'm 99% sure that the cause of the injury was a long steepish descent at the end of the first day. The hill also sloped off towards the sea so it was a really awkward camber to be running on. The lack of training in my legs probably meant I was too fatigued after 35 miles of running to stabilise my leg effectively on that downhill.

Something I did on the Isle of Wight (and which I've done on long training sessions ever since) is put a Compressport calf guard onto the offending leg. I've worn these for recovery for years and swear by them. They're a great fit and seamless which means they don't rub / leave unsightly lines in my legs like other brands I've tried. I also find that compression gear massively speeds up my recovery - something pretty key with the amount of running I'm doing. I mentioned it previously in this article on the Transalpine.

I've not tended to actually run in compression gear though. To be honest this is largely cos I overheat and so in the summer I don't want to cover up my legs, I'd rather feel the air on them keeping me cool! But this summer I've been sporting a fetching one-calf-guard-on-one-calf-guard-off look. I've not overheated and the calf guard has kept my offending right calf warm and supported.

Finish line of The RAT - the one-calf-guard-on-one-calf-guard-off look

The other thing that's made a big difference while running is focusing on relaxing. I'm a big fan of the Chi Running technique and I see this as the main reason I've managed to up my training mileage so much and take on ultra marathons. When I completely relax my lower body (except my core obviously!) and remove absolutely any hint of tension from my right lower leg by just picking up my foot rather than pushing off with it then I get no pain at all.

In terms of recovery, I've been using all my tried and trusted methods. I've been seeing Martin for regular sports massage, particularly focusing on my glutes and then the band down my right itb / quad and into my calf. Charles has been using acupuncture to get deeper into the muscles of my right glute and leg to release specific areas of tightness / muscle spasm. And I've been seeing Paddy for osteo treatment. I've got a twist in my pelvis which he straightens out. He's also been doing a lot of work on releasing tightness in my lower right leg - it looks like the location of the pain is where everything feeds into the top of the fibula and that this has become all gummed up. So Paddy's been manipulating my leg to get everything moving smoothly again.

When I headed down to Cornwall for The RAT, the good people at MudCrew were good enough to put me in touch with Tim Saunders in Liskeard who gave me a couple of sessions of shockwave treatment which seemed to work a treat at reducing inflammation and releasing unhappy muscles / soft tissues. I'm going to see if I can find someone nearer home who offers this...

On more of a DIY front, I've been doing all the usual - stretching, loosening exercises for joints, rolling, glute trigger point release with a tennis ball and using hot wheat packs. Paddy's also given me an exercise where I lie on a couple of strategically placed books to realign my hips.

I've got a couple of marathon distance races lined up in the next couple of months but I'm keeping my mileages pretty low at the moment and just letting my body recover. It feels like I'm gradually improving so fingers crossed that the second half of the year will be injury free...