This weekend I have three weeks left pre-City to Surf marathon. Will that be enough time for me to grab the required cardio fitness needed to run the marathon in under 3 hours ? This time last week I would have confidently said ‘no problem’, I had just ran a 150k training week, including some quality paced runs, that had give me my ‘mojo’ back. Unfortunately I was a tad premature, as always, and my calf started to act up on the Monday after a long weekend of training. Luckily Monday coincided with an awful day of storms, wind and rain in Perth ( a rarity luckily) , so a day off was a blessing. Not being one to ‘sit on my hands’ I booked myself into my nearest physio and had some dry needling on the offending calf Wednesday afternoon with another session on Friday. My physio confirmed that it wasn’t a tear as such just the calf responding to the last 4-5 weeks of ‘proper’ training after such a long time recovering. I suspected as much as I had run over 100k for the last 3 weeks in a row and if the calf was going to tear again I felt it would have weeks ago. Of course I have no medical qualifications but a runner knows?

So today after dry needling the calf my physio offered me some Rock Tape (He had been given a free sample so was happy to share.) I had obviously seen Rock Tape many times over the last few years but wasn’t convinced of its effectiveness and always felt it looked a bit silly (not that I’m one to ever worry about looking silly of course .) Well not being one to turn down a freebie I allowed the physio to put some Rock Tape on my calf after first consulting the video from the Rock Tape website ( https://rocktape.com.au/products/#videos. ) Well, for a change, I seemed to underestimated this product. I ran the lunchtime after the physio appointment for 11k at a reasonable pace , albeit mainly on grass, and felt great. So good in fact I doubled up this evening for another 13k and only stopped due to hunger pains and dog walking duties. The Rock Tape has so far survived two showers and will go to bed tonight still stuck to my calf, doing whatever it does ? So how does Rock Tape work ? From the Rock Tape website :-

I’ll certainly be purchasing some in the near future and I feel this will become my friend as I continue in my battle for full fitness.  Of course all this good work may be undone when I attempt to take off the Rock Tape currently clamped to my calf. I assume it will just peel off gently and leave all my hairs untouched or maybe not ? I feel trouble ahead, served up with a good helping of ‘pain’. There doesn’t seem mention of the removal process on the website funnily enough but looking at sone of the athletes featured they look more like mummy’s than athletes and if the Rock Tape caused any issues when removing they would probably need an anaesthetist to help them. I’ll let you know how I get on but assuming all is good this product definitely gets the thumbs up from me. Now do you think I could get away with bright pink ?

After writing the post last night I ran a 12k progressive this afternoon with the Rock Tape still on my calf and felt great, not a murmur from my troublesome right calf and I gave it a good workout (see my Strava details below. Remember if it isn’t on Strava it didn’t happen, you do have a Strava account don’t you..? http://www.strava.com  feel free to follow me, Big Kev, Perth, WA should be enough to find me in the search option.) Admittedly the calf would have benefited from my two visits to the physio and dry needling but the Rock Tape seems to have totally cured my ‘tired calf‘ niggle that has been troubling me all week. As with all things injury based time will tell but this afternoons run has given me the confidence to lock in that sub 3hr City to Surf Marathon time again,  after I’d almost given up earlier in the week. Maybe that was the Rock Tape brings to the party, a placebo effect that convinces your brain the injury is cured and/or does enough to concentrate the brain on doing what needs to be done to overcome the injury i.e. making small adjustments to reduce the load on the affected area. My physio seems to think this is how Rock Tape works, by concentrating the mind on the injury and there by curing it by adjusting what needs to be adjusted. This seems to ring true with the Rock Tape company who claim a Neurological effect  – altering the perception of pain and improving body awareness. However it works for me it certainly seems to have helped and I couldn’t be happier. Of course with all things running this could change in an instant, right back to my original question, could I get away with pink Rock Tape ?