Return to Running Plan
I recently challenged the team here at VeloFit to find something that is challenging and forces you outside of your comfort zone for the year. We all came up with some hard goals and I just happened to pick "running a marathon" as my goal for the year. Being a cyclist, it was hard to give up my long weeks of training in exchange for pounding the pavement every morning.
I started out great for the first month, and like a noob, I strained my calf approximately a month into it. I told myself to start out slow like I tell all my patients, but of course I couldn't help myself seeing the PR's every week (I already knew that was a bad sign).
Anyway, I just wanted to hop on here and share a great return to running plan that I stumbled on that got me back into running after a mild strain. The plan can be applied to most lower body injuries but it gives a good roadmap into the self-assessment part of returning after an injury.
Disclaimer: you have to be honest with yourself and perform a ton of self-evaluation with this program. It takes patience and you have to supplement it with the proper manual therapy techniques that I implemented on myself to manage the tension that occurred in my calf. I would highly recommend seeing someone to loosen up any tension that you may be feeling in order to "reset" the strain that may have occurred. And like with all injuries, the sooner you address it, the faster it will heal with proper adaptation and load.
