Small steps in the right direction

Yesterday's brief jog was on the treadmill at the gym.  Still only two minutes jogging/one minute walking for a bit more than a mile, but at an actual jogging pace.  And, again, nothing hurt.  I felt a bit of stiffness in my calf at one point and, unusually for me, slowed down a bit rather than pretend that nothing was happening.  The stiffness immediately stopped and I was able to speed back up a bit with no problems a couple of intervals later. 

I had a massage appointment with Adam after work today.  He was pleased with how much less tight my hamstring and calf are and, even though there is still a residual sore spot in my calf, he agrees with Julie the Physio that this is an adhesion that will work itself loose with stretching, massage, and actually using the muscle.

I mentioned to Adam that my gluteus medius, at the point where it attaches to the iliac crest, was feeling quite tight again.  This is the same pain that sent me to Claudio in the first place, well before any calf or hamstring strains, and I'm annoyed that it has resurfaced with only a very little bit of running.  Adam identified general tightness throughout the muscle and did his sports massage thing on it.  This hurt, but not as much as it did when I first started seeing him; at that point, he couldn't even touch that area because it was so sore. 

A chocolate-cappucino blancmange.

The massage must have worked to relax things because towards the end, Adam announced that my glutes were now like a blancmange.  He immediately backtracked and apologised for comparing my bum to a wibbly wobbly pudding, and I graciously forgave him (although it did cross my mind that it might be time to reduce the quantity of cake in my diet).  I left in good spirits , with some KT tape applied to my calf, and in possession of yet more stretches, this time to target my glutes.

So what's next?  For now, I'm just going to stick with my mile jogs and not even think about the 10k, two half-marathons, and marathon that I plan on doing in the next year.  Slow and sensible, that's me!