Last Saturday (Jan. 18), I had a terrible cramp in my leg just a little more than 3 miles into my run. It came on with no warning at all. Just BAM.
I tried to stretch it out a little bit, then tried to run, but nope. It wasn’t happening.
I was 3 miles out into a long run and it was barely 7 a.m. There was no quick little walk back. There was no calling someone to pick me up.
I screamed out “NOT AGAIN!!!!” in my head pretty loudly. I thought about really quitting on running again for about 30 seconds.
But I simply turned around and starting walking back. Walking was not an issue at all.
About 10 minutes later, I decided to see what would happen if I ran. And surprisingly, it didn’t hurt.
I could feel something there, but it wasn’t completely terrible. So I weaved my way back home, having to go a different route due to traffic concerns, and ended up with a little more than 6 miles, a pretty far cry from my goal of at least 10.
After I cleaned myself up and relaxed, the cramping feeling came back, but it felt like post-race soreness, not an injury. I actually didn’t feel overly concerned about being injured again after a few hours.
For two days, I made sure to hydrate well, researched a few things, did a lot of self massaging and rolling and took Sunday off as much as I possibly could.
So this week, my attention turned to using pickle juice to fight off any cramping issues. (Here, I’ve Googled that for you!)
Then today, I had exactly ZERO problems on my run both from a physical and mental standpoint.
Mentally, I also felt very checked out last week. From the first few steps something felt off and all week that issue just felt like a big wake-up call to me. I’ve got to keep my head in the game.
(Much more coming later on the RunGum and its impacts …)
So now, it’s back to running as normal. This time, though, with a shot of pickle juice before my longer runs.
Real David H. 
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