Help- Sore Calf (Read 2141 times)

About two days before thanksgiving I injured myself. I was comming back from a chest cold and trying to make up some lost miles before a Thanksgiving half-marathon. I know that was a stupid idea and what's worse is I ran the half anyway. I only ran a few times in December trying to recover. I started back up at the new year and felt pretty good for the first couple of runs. Now the pain is back. The pain seems to originate toward the inside of the calf about half way between the ankle and the knee. The pain is not overbearing. It is sort of a dull pain and it seems to dissepate after a couple of miles. It remains sore after the run. I have used the RICE method and have been eating ibuprofen after runs. I guess I am looking for advice. My weekly mileage is not that high and I would like to keep running. Is that stupid? This week I gave myself an extra day off before my long run tomorrow. Last year I had a stress fracture right above the ankle in the other leg. This doesn't feel like that. There has not been any noticable swelling. It really feels like a pulled muscle (micro tear?) but I would assume that it would have healed by now if that was the case. I am really trying to avoid going to the doctor in that I just finished paying off the stress fracture from last year. Any input would be welcomed.

Go see a doctor.

this sounds alot like what I had... I thought it was achiles tendon... it is kind of on the inside half of the leg but below the muscle. The pain was just below where the muscle stops... Same thing... it hurt before... after it warmed up it felt better and usually wouldn't bother me too much durring a run and then was sore after. Rest didn't seam to help much as it came right back. I massaged the heck out of my calf and found that there was a very sore spot up in the middle of my calf. I worked on it for 3 or 4 days. Each day doing a warm up friction type massage and then digging in to the sore spot. after this it seamed to be getting better. I also bought new shoes as the current ones were in the 300-350 mile range. I also did calf raises kind of... on the affected leg... I did calf lowers? well I would raise my wieght up on the other leg... then allow my right leg to take the weight to be lowered down... I did 10-15 of those every day for the week with the self massage. My guess is that this super tight spot in my muscle was causing tension and the pain I was feeling in the tendons and connective tissue. Or it could be all the shoes...

Seeing a doctor is a good idea if you can find a doctor with a running background or interest. Too often the only remedy is stop running without much discussion on prevention and re-habbing. Something that has helped me over the years is trigger point therapy. I have used this book for several years to help with a variety of injuries http://www.triggerpointbook.com/. What jsobo described is trigger point therapy. Many massage therapists specialize in trigger points, but it isn't a relaxing massage because they work out the soreness.

STAY OFF OF IT!!! I had the same sort of issue last month. I continued to run through the pain and right into my own stress fracture. Now, I’m out for 6 weeks and my April marathon looks to be a No-Go. 6 Weeks!! A stress fracture of the Fibula (outside calf bone) doesn't hurt all that much and mine didn't swell at all. I just thought is was a sore muscle as well...until it didn't go away. Look at my past posts and you'll see that I, too, was looking for advice for the exact same issue. I'm not trying to suggest anything but ‘better safe than sorry’. As you know, you’ll need to stop training for longer if you injure it further.

I second the advice to self-massage. I get something that sounds very similar to what you describe -- only in my left calf. I bought The Stick. Now, every evening, I spend about 5 minutes rolling The Stick around all of my calf muscles, then another 10 doing deep massage in and around where the pain occurs. It's definitely helped. By the way, regular stretching, ice and compression did nothing. For me, at least, it only seems to respond to daily massage.

So I just got back from my first run in 3 1/2 weeks. It was the first time I have run pain free since before thanksgiving. Like I said in my previous post, I'm just going to ease into it for the next few weeks. It felt so good to be back out running!