Way back in January, I signed up to the Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis 2014 Run Challenge and made a pledge to run 700 km in 2014. Here we are at the end of the first quarter and I have currently run 97 miles (156k) which is 22% towards my target for the year.

Although I’m slightly off the pace due to a niggling pain just below my left calf, hopefully as the nice weather arrives, I can catchup over the next few months. It seems that this pain below my calf is going to be caused by foolishly ignoring the 2 golden rules by increasing my mileage too soon and by neglecting stretching.

If I’m completely honest, I don’t think I have ever stretched properly so after picking up a slight injury, it’s probably about time that I started to take things a little more seriously and anything that can help improve your flexibility and prevent injury can’t be all bad.

So for anyone who is looking for what stretches to perform after a run and help keep yourself injury free, have a look at the images below.

I have always found that my biggest issue with stretching is not knowing exactly what to do and fear of looking a little foolish whilst doing them, but I have made myself  a promise to try and drop a few of my bad habits and hopefully avoid any further injuries.

Currently I have  a pain just below my calf but significantly higher than my Achilles, so it appears I have a slight tear or strain around the the soleus muscle.

So my plan is to rest for a week and then slowly strengthen this area with a series of stretches already mentioned and some good old fashioned calf lifts.

Hopefully this information will help you too, if you have been searching online for running stretches, but please let me know if you have any useful information that you think will help.