3100 Mile Race : Sri Chinmoy “Self-Transcendence” USA : William’s Calf Problems

Some good news from the race, but first a little background.

For most of the race so far, William has been suffering from a calf strain. Although it has not been bad enough to stop William from continuing in the race, it was for several days severe enough that he was forced to only walk as running was too painful and too potentially damaging to the muscle.

Those of you who have been checking the daily distance totals on the offical race website – the latest updates to which are here – will have realised that William’s daily mileage hasn’t been as high as we might have liked, essentially because William has had to walk and not run during this period.

 

William grabs a few minutes much-needed recovery for his calf...

Using the RICE principle to treat the problem, William grabs a few minutes much-needed recovery for his calf…

..... While waiting for some ice-cream to be delivered...

….. While waiting for some ice-cream to be delivered…
{William’s form of RICE = Rest, Ice-Cream, Elevation}

Speaking to William during the worst period of his calf problem, he described himself as being in “survival mode” with regard to the race, simply hanging on in their and doing his best to add whatever distance he could.

Every other lap or so he did some stretches on the calf, tried occasionally to run a lap just to see if the calf was feeling any better, but otherwise was walking for the entire day.

Tim Rainey told me during this period : “He sleeps with his feet up on a box. Feels like he’s getting good sleep. Waking up Ok.”

By yesterday morning (4th of July) the calf had improved a good deal, and at that point Tim wrote :

“William started well this morning. Running much more now 15 laps in the first 2 hours.”

And the latest news from Aidrian (Tarit) Stott – who is at the race and will shortly be taking over from Tim as William’s crewman – is that (Friday Night US time)it is :

“cooler tonight with a breeze and William and most of the runners are taking advantage of the conditions to run strongly right up to midnight when they retire to sleep! william’s calf seems to have settled down and he is having his best day of the week and is headng for a 60 mile plus day.”

With a tad of luck this will mark a return to focused running for William, who at the end of Day 19 of the race had covered 1061.38 miles and thus had just over another 2000 miles still to cover.