Crampin' calves on Monday

Well, this was the route I was supposed to run last night. 5 mi loop starting at the Marin Circle in N. Berkeley and heading north through Kensington, going through parts of N. Berkeley and eventually ending back at Marin Circle. I actually did the run last week and loved it! Extremely scenic, lots of little neighborhood streets, easy map to follow, not a lot of traffic, etc.

But not even having finished Mile 1 did I start having really bad calf cramps - in both calves! I tried to stretch them out, and it was just plain painful!! I started walking instead, and the pain just didn't go away, so at about the 1 1/2 mile mark, I turned around and walked back home.

I don't know if it was the initial hills, or I wasn't warmed up enough, or I hadn't had a banana in a few days, but it was hurting! Luckily, by the time I got home, I was feeling much better. Calves were still tight, but I was able to stretch them a bit. The sucky thing was that I wasn't able to keep my HR up very much (obviously! - until I headed back up Marin to go home, and then my HR hit 150), so I'm going to try another long run this week.

New for my blog:
I rearranged my blog site yesterday & added all of the events over to the right that I am planning on doing not only this year but for the next 2 years. I keep reading in several triathlon magazines that it's best to lay out the goals, see what's achieveable, and then really put a training plan together to meet those goals. So I did the first step - laying out the events. I even added a half marathon to the mix this year!! I'm so freakin' excited about that. I've realized this season that I can run further than I ever thought I could if I slow down my pace, so now I'm all excited to see how my running can progress to race in a half marathon.

I realized in looking at other triathlon sites yesterday that the more interesting ones have pics on them. So I'm going to start adding more pics. The run route from yesterday? Not too exciting, but it's a start! :)