The Burn

I stretched twice as long as usual. We started out. I prayed that my calves would give me a reprieve from their usual bullying. By the time we had gotten about twice as far as I usually run before I walk, my calves felt like they’d been stretched on the rack and the Marquis de Sade was pinging them with a dulcimer hammer.

I thought about how much further we had to go and I felt my chest tighten with fear. I couldn’t seem to get enough of the hot and syrupy, heavy with humidity Oklahoma air. It wasn’t that I was out of breath aerobically; I was hyper-ventilating from panic. Tim told me to breathe out with three steps, breath in with one. He said to make sure my lungs were emptying completely. At first, I gasped deeply with each inward breath, trying to take in enough air, but gradually I relaxed my breathing and it helped. Tim matched his breaths to mine and we ran in lockstep, the rhythm helping to calm my panic.

The pain in my calves did not lessen. This has been my cross from the beginning. The pain, as always, was intense, my calves screaming at me to STOP NOW. As the pain increased, I began to unconsciously lengthen my stride in an attempt to reduce the pain, but this only made things worse. Tim repeatedly reminded me to shorten my gait and he reduced his own to help me. To my great disappointment, I was finally forced to walk. I cried for awhile, mostly from frustration, and Tim consoled me. I alternated running and walking the rest of the time, and my traitor calves never stopped their torture, ratcheting it up to maximum each time I broke into a run.

I want to see what it feels like to stretch myself aerobically when I run. I want to reach that place - I know it exists! - where I can run five miles comfortably, take a walk break, then run five miles, but unless I can outsmart my calves, I don’t see it happening. I went back to Jeff Galloway’s book and read everything pertaining to calf pain that I could find. I don’t believe my form is severely faulty, because I have absolutely no soreness after running. I believe I am experiencing lactic acid burn and that I may be pushing a bit harder off the ground than is necessary.

Galloway says that you have to exercise for over 45 minutes to get past the burn. Tonight, we will try something different. We will walk and jog for three miles to burn off the glycogen, then we will run. I want to reach that sweet nirvana that beckons to me beyond the burn.