The hard part of the marathon is the middle, right?
Not long after the halfway point of my marathon, my leg seized up. This was frustrating, because this was the exact injury I trained to avoid. I pretty much did everything I could think of to prevent it, and it struck surprisingly early.
My calf cramped. A cramp that was basically like the fastest, most severe charlie horse I’ve encountered. The calf muscle locked up rock-hard, harder than I’m capable of flexing it. And it hurt bad. Like a rubber band that’s supposed to control the leg movement just snapped.
I had to drop to the road and clutch it, which I’m sure looked alarming to the other runners. One offered to fetch an ambulance, but I knew what this was so I asked her to not. One kind Samaritan stopped, said that this thing happened to him too, and gave it a powerful massage until it started loosening up.
But I still had double-digit miles to go, and I knew I would have to walk a few of them. This totally shifted my approach to the rest of the race.