Me on the far left balancing on my good leg after pulling a calf muscle
It’s been quite a week. Well I guess it’s been two weeks. My calf has felt tender and tight since I hiked up Blackburn Ravine two weeks ago.
You can read about that hike here Climbing Blackburn Ravine, the Silvermine Dam and the Noordhoek Peak descent
Looking down Blackburn Ravine
After a big hike I usual need to take it a little easy on my knees and do some gentle recovery walking along with my regular functional fitness at our Summer Squad Bootcamp that I do 3 times a week.
This time my right calf just stayed the same - it didn’t seem to be recovering as well as the rest of my body. Then on Wednesday, 10 days after the hike, we did our usual boot camp warm up walk/run, 1 minute alternating, out on the road along the beach. But on the way back after only a couple kilometres my calf cramped really badly and I felt a tweak that was not good.
I hobbled back to the grass in pain, barely able to put my foot down. I’ve generally got quite a high pain threshold so I guess this calf had been talking to me and I wasn’t listening.
Luckily one of the ladies in our group is a kinesiologist and quickly got me down on the mat and started working. The main thing that I noticed was that I had no pain as long as I didn’t use the muscle which she said probably meant I hadn’t torn anything. But when she was working she had to work out this extreme knot that had formed right up near the back of my knee. This was no fun and hurt like hell.
We went back to her studio and she kept working as the knot slowly released and worked its way down my calf. She absolutely worked a miracle because by the end I could put my foot flat and place weight on my leg again. I gingerly walked back to the car avoiding engaging my calf muscle as much as possible in a strange flat footed sideways walk.
I was given strict instructions to rest, ice and elevate my leg. Which I did!!! But I’m also a real sucker and can’t sit still for too long (other than to type up my blogs 😂). I was also tempted to test out this stupid calf every hour or so. Gentle and slow walking seemed to be ok, but no heavy weight or force was possible on Wednesday and Thursday. Friday was slightly better.
Today was a bit more of a turn for the better. I can definitely walk easier and I am trying to be intentional about walking correctly and not making adjustments to my posture to accommodate the silly calf. I’m now finding that I can push off my toes without pain.
I’m still going to rest for the rest of the weekend and take off bootcamp for the first half of the week. I’m hoping that by Wednesday morning I will be well and able enough to do the GLOBAL TAKE A HIKE DAY. (17 November)
The plan is to SLOWLY take a hike up Table Mountain collecting any litter along the way. And in return we get a free Cable Car ride down. I’ll have to do a report back on Wednesday evening to let you know if I managed.
But for the rest of you Hikers out there, why not grab your hiking boots and join the rest of us out in nature on Wednesday (and don’t forget to take a bag to collect some litter along the way.)
India Venster route up Table Mountain, Cape Town, South Africa
In the meantime, here’s a pic from my last hike on Table Mountain up the India Venster Route. Next week we will be doing Platteklip Gorge 🤞🏼
I think I’ll be laying off the running for the next while and stick to walking and hiking. I need this body to last as long as possible because I plan on doing a whole lot more hiking all around the world as soon as I get the chance.
