Oh my God. What the hell have I done to myself.

I've got one of those special ice-pack bandage things, the ones where you put the ice-pack in the freezer, then when it's frozen, you slip it inside the bandage's 'pocket' before wrapping it around the injury. The two ends are velcro so you can basically pull it as tight as you like and then secure.

I was lying in bed last night doing some work on my laptop and I put it on for about twenty minutes. Well that was the plan. Unfortunately I somehow forgot all about it and fell asleep with it on. When I woke up at 6.30am this morning I was still wearing it.

When I took it off I nearly fainted. My whole leg had blown up like a melon. I'm not joking. My leg has elephantitis. I don't know what's happened but it looks bad. It feels all bouncy to the touch, like it's just swollen up really bad or something, but jesus. Imagine if it stays like that? I'd have to to join the circus.

Actually, it is now lunchtime and I have just had another inspection and it appears to be going down but it still looks weird. I really hope it's not going to explode. Not while I'm at work anyway.

Been too miserable to write this thing for the last week. The day after my last post I attempted to run 5k and had to give up halfway through as my right calf was still really aching - and I can normally run through a few aches and pains, but this was making me limp - which really pissed me off. I tried not to get too despondent about it and just rested and tried again the next night. Again, after about ten minutes, my calf was really giving me a lot of aggro and I slowed down to a walk for another ten minutes. Felt a bit better. Ran for ten more minutes, slowly, and then decided to do some intervals, just because I was feeling like I really hadn't had a good, proper workout for days, if not weeks. Stupid bloody idea.

I did two minute walks, two minute runs for about twenty minutes, speeding up each time I ran, but nothing too drastic. First of all, it was feeling quite a lot better, then it started coming back as I got faster. The second to last interval was when I should've stopped as each step was making me wince, severely, but foolishly I thought I would carry on to the end. The final two minutes were about an 8:20 pace - which is very fast for me - but after about three steps I felt a giant twang deep inside my calf muscle and I had to stop immediately. I had to jump off the treadmill onto the sides as it was too painful to wait the ten seconds for it to come to a halt.

Since then I have been impatiently waiting for it to get better but it just isn't. It's not so painful that I can't walk, or even do other forms of exercise (I've still been going to the gym everyday and going on the pissboring crosstrainer and step machine and stuff) but as soon as I try and run it just seizes up. It really does hurt. I guess the answer is to just rest completely and not do anything at all for a few days, but ... I can't do that, I'll go mental. And I also worry that my fitness will plummet if I do that. (Incidentally, at a medical check-up last week I was told I had the blood pressure of a 12 year old girl, hooray! ((It was 98/54)). That certainly made me feel a lot younger than any pointless pot of cream could ever do, plus my HR was 44 which I was also pleased about seeing as I was late for the appointment, had to really rush and was all stressed out when I got there - so yes, hopefully the fitness levels in those respects are ok, and I won't turn into an incapable lump of rock by missing out on a few workouts). So I've been icing on and off, and it seems to help. But I keep forgetting to put the ice-pack back in the freezer, like a total dur-brain.

I'm still clinging on to an ever-more-improbable hope that I'll be able to run a half-marathon in precisely 5 weeks, which I know in my heart of hearts is a preposterous idea. I'm so behind in my training now that even if I were fighting fit, I would stlil be lucky to make it to mile six. I'm going to give it one more week I think, before I finally write it off. So gutted to even be considering pulling out. You only get to run in your hometown marathon (or half-marathon) once a year, after all. I'll just have to find something else, I suppose.