There has been a sharp pain radiating off the side of my right calf muscle for the last month and a nagging discomfort in my Achilles. I’ve mostly tried to ignore it, hoping it’s just normal muscle pain from a balls-to-the-wall season of training and racing. Yet, it hasn’t subsided, and seems to be getting increasingly worse. I’ve just finished a few months of having my back corrected at $45/15 minutes by a chiropractor, and now it’s on to massage therapy to get the bottom half of my body back in working order. Pain is just a part of the training; bruises, cuts, blisters, aching muscles, black toenails, road rash, chafing, and so on, but all that stuff is more of a nuisance than anything, and working through it won’t cause any more damage. But my massage therapist has guaranteed me months of discomfort and indefinite time off if I don’t sit down and relax for a little bit. The ‘R’ word is something I loathe. I train for three different sports, twice a day, six days a week; I don’t do rest. The thought of cutting back on my running workouts is difficult to think about. It is my weakest of the three sports and requires the most attention. Although, the thought of cutting out all three sports and not doing anything for any period of time kills me, so I suppose I’m going with his advice. Here’s to doubling up on swim workouts and bike rides.