Painful cramps

This morning I awoke in a rather unpleasant manner, to a calf cramp.  It is strange as I haven't done so much exercise the last few days.  Somehow though the cramps come more when I am not doing so much exercise.  It was the same way when I stopped bodybuilding.  Only after I stopped did the cramps start coming.  Is it my body's way of telling me not to forget to get out there and run/ cycle soon?  Luckily it was not a full blown cramp because Anny is very well trained in cramp care now.  The moment I start shouting in pain she grabs my leg and stretches it out.  Then she massages the muscle.  Back before I had my cramp nurse (Anny) the cramps became full blown muscle tearing cramps, and the affected muscle would remain very tight and sore for a day or two afterwards.

This evening I had a Pilates class, my last till January.  I was a bit worried that the exercises would set off the cramps again.  There were one or two points in the class when they nearly did, but then I told my teacher and we switched to other exercises instead.  I  paid for 10 Pilates classes in advance and I still have 5 remaining that I can do next year.  I will return to Zurich in mid January and then I will most likely travel out to Morocco mid March (so that I have 2 weeks of heat acclimatisation before the Marathon des Sables).  So that's five classes I can do in 2 months, which is "fairly" regular.

Tomorrow I have a couple of errands to run, like buying farewell cakes for the team and collecting my day and night contact lenses, but if I can I will try to fit in a lunchtime run.  It is pretty hot at the moment but still okay to run without any real problems.  Then on Saturday morning I am taking my flight to Rwanda.  Most of my stuff is already laid out on the bed, and it is more or less a matter of shoving it into a suitcase.  Anny is already flying out to Rwanda tomorrow morning, so she will be there to welcome me when I arrive.  I was considering to fly out with her but then I decided another days salary would come in very handy and that it was better to fly out on Saturday instead.

In case you are wondering, I am planning to take my running shoes to Rwanda with me.  I think it should be perfectly safe to run in Kigali.  I don't intend to run in the DRC though.  Then I also don't intend to run up the Kilimanjaro in Tanzania either.  Running up Kilimanjaro would be cool but that would only be possible if I was already acclimatised to the altitude.  I will probably be running at 4,000m altitude in South America but that is different as we will be at high altitude for almost a month, so my body will have plenty of time to adapt.