Night Cramp - Ouch!

Yikes! In the middle of the night after Sunday’s 10-mile run I was awakened by an excruciating cramp in the right calf. Normally the best way to relieve a cramp is to go into a stretch, but I was in bed and that didn’t seem like an option. I just moaned and waited the minute or two required for the cramp to pass. Then I could get up and do the stretch, although by then the muscle had injured itself a bit and it hurt to stretch. It still hurt Monday morning and all that day.

I’ve never had a night cramp before, and hope I don’t again. Why did it happen? Two possibilities that I can think of: (1) I ran ten miles the previous day without taking any water during the run. Normally I do take water for a run longer than eight miles; and (2) This was DEX day - the day that the dexamethasone has its maximum effect, and in fact I had taken the DEX just a few hours earlier. Can it have this kind of effect? Never heard that before, but there aren’t that many runners taking DEX so it could be an unreported side effect.

Tuesday, though, I had a nice four-mile run on the Gateway trail. NO pain in that calf during the run, although I could still feel where it injured itself. I did have a slight pain in the outside of the left ankle, new and strange, that did not entirely go away. I think it will though. Doesn’t feel like a serious thing. I hope.

I was doing well enough, but stopped to help a little turtle across the trail and out of bike danger, and then I walked for a while with another runner as we chatted. So the overall pace is glacial, but the run served its purpose. Hoping for a long run Thursday if the ankle will cooperate.

Splits: 9:07, 21:02 (2 mi), 9:18, total 39:27, pace 9:52.



This morning's breakfast: Gluten-free oatmeal with dried cranberries, organic strawberries, organic walnuts, frozen blueberries, kiwi, a dark chocolate wafer, and organic fat-free milk.