Calves = ow
I don’t know what happened on Wednesday, but my calves have been killing me since then. I felt marvelous on Tuesday and during the run on Wednesday, but the next morning I felt like I had run the 5K of my life.
The only difference was that I had to run Wednesday in my trail shoes because of the rain. They felt like big bricks on my feet compared with the new shoes. I’ve never had trouble with the trail shoes before though. In fact, they have always been a relief to run in compared with my regular shoes. I’m perplexed.
But the pain is not subsiding. I have trouble on stairs still. It bothers me that it isn’t getting better. Today I will cut the crosstraining, yet again. I have house cleaning to do anyway, and I have to get the tomato plants in the ground and off the porch.
Yesterday I did 9 with a hill in the middle so I think I will be good to go for next weekend. Then I took my son to the Barton Garnet Mine, which was interesting but a bit pricey. $9 for adults and $7 for him and the “mine” is really a pit that you dig around in with a plastic pail and shovel. The admission price gives you a season pass, but they still charge you $1/pound to take stuff out. I’m thinking since this portion of the mine is not in use, the admission price should include 20 pounds of whatever you take out and then you pay extra for more above that. I mean, they don’t get $1/pound for pure garnet on the market, so how can they charge that much for people picking through it themselves for tiny bits?
The garnet there is all fractured and useless for jewelry, but its some of the hardest in the world so it makes fantastic abrasives. Barton supplies about 75% of the garnet in the world for abrasives. The guy who bought the land bought it for 10 cents an acre. The road up the mountain to the mine is 5 miles long and about a 45 degree incline. Not for vehicles with a weak transmission. It seems like all high school kids running the place so maybe this is how they make their summer money. There isn’t much in that part of the Adirondacks anyway, except rafting. Purty country though.
July 1st, 2007 14:26
Nine miles? Awesome Jon! That’s good in the grand scheme of things. As far as the calves, I just have to ask … did you stretch after you ran? Even if you did, keep stretching.
July 1st, 2007 18:10
Nine miles is great, I’m jealous!! I remember, way back, when I was doing nine miles and you were jealous grrrr((&^%^^&(*!
July 1st, 2007 19:11
Did you do the ice bath thing? as I recall, you were doing that wen I dropped off the face of the earth. I’ve been wondering how well that worked.
July 2nd, 2007 10:09
sorry about the calves, maybe lots of ice packs? you’re doing great with the distances?
I used to stop along side a highway in norther Ariz. where you can find garnets(about the size of aquarium gravel). I picked a few but didn’t know what to do with them. now that location is fenced off.
July 2nd, 2007 10:11
That doesn’t sound so expensive to me if you can go back whenever you want. And they have to make money to maintain the picnic grounds and restrooms and stuff, right? $16 bucks for several days worth of fun seems pretty cheap and how many garnets would it take to make 20 pounds? At least you can limit your kid by saying he needs to pick the ’special’ rocks or something.
As for the calves - get a foam roller or a ’stick’. They really work. And congrats on the 9 miles.
July 3rd, 2007 20:02
I’m not much help with muscle pain. Sometimes I do runs when I shouldn’t hurt at all, but do, and then I do an incredibly hard effort and they don’t.
I once knew a guy named Garnet. I thought he was kind of cool, maybe even a gem in the rough. I’ve always thought of garnets as gems - never knew they were used in abrasives. Then again, that Garnet guy turned out to be pretty coarse in the end, too…