Long time no post!

Apologies readers, well Sticky at least. I'v e failed to update the blog for nearly 2 weeks. Now I could put this down to my ultra-busy work, play and training schedule or a niggling injury but truth is I've just forgotten to. Right since my last post I have done my normal training routine - a couple of runs during the week and a bike session.
On Saturday 26th I set off at 7am for a 20 miler, unfortunately after about 7 miles around Hyde Park I felt my left calf muscle tighten up so for once in my life I did the sensible thing and cut the run short. I completed 10 miles and headed for home. Now normally I would be devastated by this and think it a set back, but thats not how the new Paul thinks! I ran that 10 miles ahead of marathon pace and felt exceptionally good, a 10 miler is nothing to me now which is great. My pace was good and consistent, I felt good from the word go and fell straight into a rhythm. I knew the calf wasn't an injury but simply a reaction to the amount of mileage I had put in over the last few weeks/months. Here's the biology bit - all the impact of every step of my runs causes the muscle fibres in the leg muscles particularly the calfs shorten and tighten. Eventually parts of the muscle effectively ball-up into hard knots. Now if I had been a model trainer all the way through this may not of happened, but I must admit I don't do enough pre or post run stretching to pull the muscles back into shape and on Saturday they told me so! When I got home I dd the requisite stretching (horse / gate / bolted - I know) then showered.
On the Sunday the calf was slightly stiff but nothing major. On the Tuesday I did 50 minutes on the bike and that helped stretch it out, yesterday was a quick 6 miles with no adverse reaction. Today I have booked a sports massage with my physiotherapist just to stretch out and loosen my legs up and then I'll go for a short run tonight. After which I promise to stretch for the full 20 minutes. This Saturday is my last "big" run, a 22 miler after this I will be tapering down my mileage, storing up that energy for race day!