Ache Illes wrote:
William how did you solve it?
I ice daily, do the calf stretching and strengthening, and warm up for a while before runs, but it definitely lingers. Some days it’s totally fine, others it’s bad.
What worked for me was to take a very strong form of medication given to me by our athletic trainer.
To this day I have no idea what he gave me. It might have been a prelude to ibuprofen. At first I merely
used a regular bike and put in some easy miles around campus. After 2 weeks of that the trainer put me
on a stationary bike and told me I could go hard for no more than 20 minutes. So I did that daily and iced
afterwards.
Then when I started running again I always did a very careful warmup with lots of stretching, including a
stretch I got from Runner's World magazine. I've never seen anyone else do it. It is supposed to be hard
on your back but it stretched my hamstring, calf, and foot at the same time! I would spend hours going
back and forth into that stretch. But I had a full routine. (I was told to always stretch "hot." That is you
have worked up a very good sweat and maintain it during your stretching routine.) I spent a lot of time
icing after running.
The athletic trainer I had was a coach of nationally ranked gymnastic teams. We were DII and they
always beat the top DI schools that came in against them. It was like watching the Olympics. He later
went on to win national titles at our school. One thing he told me is that anytime you injure something,
that body part will never be the same. It might be 99.9% but never 100%. But I did run faster the next
two years. Unfortunately I was only eligible for one of those.
I caution you to realize that there was a lot more to coming back than what I have written here.
You must find a good doctor and probably a good physical therapist too. You might have to go through
several people and places to find what you need.