Week 278: 4 hours 27 minutes in 5 runs.
Mon - 60 min easy
Tue - 52 min with 3x hill
Wed - off
Thu - off
Fri - 60 min easy
Sat - 1 hr 25 min
Sun - 10 min easy
Tuesday was supposed to be 5x hill, but halfway through the 4th I strained my right calf. Classic medial gastrocnemius, grade-1. The hill fades to the left, and I was drifting so far left I was having trouble staying on the path. Weird. I have done hundreds of reps there and never had that happen before. With a tremendous effort I pulled myself back uphill to the right (maybe 20 steps), then felt a stabbing pain and instantly stopped running. Managed to walk the 5K home by going backwards up all the hills.
Wednesday and Thursday I didn't do much, just a little biking and walking.
Friday was actually fine, no discomfort whatsoever. Easy 7 miles in 60 minutes, including some uphill. Yeah, I know I am supposed to wait 10 days before resuming training, but I am one of those guys who just has to find out for myself.
Saturday I set out to do 1 hr 45 min at any pace. I started out walking and cautiously walked up every hill. Out was 5.5 miles in 60 min. On the way back I wanted to do it in 45 min. Everything was fine until a young guy passed me doing 7:30 miles and looking very relaxed. No, I did not speed up. What I did was look at his form and contrast it with mine. I noticed that his hips were very still. I also noticed that his calves were very relaxed, actually no muscle definition at all. Anyway, I changed my stride to remove all up-and-down hip motion. It felt easy, for about two minutes... at which point my right calf threw in the towel; locked up; done. Another long walk followed. At least this time I was able to go forwards up the hills.
Today was just a test. It wasn't as good as Friday, but it wasn't bad.
Next week I will just do more testing. The week after I will try to ease back into training.