Clutch Leg

For much of the afternoon yesterday, my leg was hurting. Not in any specific place, just a general achiness -- and one that I knew that I had felt before. Well, it finally dawned on me this morning where I had felt like that before.

I used to own a Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX, which tends to have a fairly tight clutch. I also used to live up in the DC area, which tends to have lots of bozos on the roads. There were some times when I would take the Eclipse to work in heavy traffic, and it would take near two hours to get there -- and I would be pushing in on the clutch most of the way there. It would wear out my leg something fierce, and it would just get achy all over.

That is what it felt like yesterday! So, henceforth, I am going to call this condition "clutch leg".

From what I can tell, it basically comes from overusing one leg far beyond where it should be used. Now, what does this have to do with running? Plenty. For a while, I was varying my course from time to time and making sure to run it backwards every now and then. After I started running my 3.2 (or 3.3, or 3.4) mile loop around the neighborhood, I've been running the same direction every time. And I'm basically staying on one side of the road, which does have a noticeable crown on it. Since the left leg (the one that hurts) is on the lower side of the road, I'm betting that has something to do with the achiness. So, when I do start road running again, I'm definitely going to make sure that I switch off road sides every now and then to try to even things out.

Of course, I bet everybody out there (yes, even you) are wondering... how does it feel today? Well, it feels pretty good. There's a little stiffness in the calf, but the shin is A-OK. Hooray. And I will still take it pretty easy today, just to make sure.