A quick scan of what happened over the past week.

• Sawe Breaks Two Hours, Assefa Sets Women's Record at London Marathon — The 2026 TCS London Marathon produced one of the most extraordinary days in the history of the sport. Kenya's Sabastian Sawe became the first athlete ever to break the two-hour barrier in a record-eligible marathon, clocking 1:59:30 on the chip-timed course from Blackheath to The Mall. Ethiopia's Yomif Kejelcha, making his marathon debut, finished second in 1:59:41 — becoming the second person in history to break two hours in a sanctioned race. Uganda's Jacob Kiplimo rounded out the podium in 2:00:28. On the women's side, Ethiopia's Tigst Assefa lowered her own women-only world record to 2:15:41 in the closest top-three finish in London Marathon history — Hellen Obiri and Joyciline Jepkosgei finished second and third in 2:15:53 and 2:15:55 respectively, just 14 seconds separating the top three. Over 59,000 runners finished on The Mall, the largest field in London Marathon history.

• Kerstetter and Pepper Win the CrossFit Legends Championship in Del Mar — The second CrossFit Semifinal of the 2026 season wrapped up this weekend at Del Mar Arena in Del Mar, California, with two men's and two women's Games qualifying spots on the line. On the women's side, Olivia Kerstetter took first place with Abi Domit finishing second — both punching their tickets to the CrossFit Games. Lydia Fish finished third. Notably, Danielle Brandon and Emily Rolfe — two of the more prominent names in the sport — finished outside the top two and will need to qualify through the Online Semifinals to make the Games. On the men's side, Dallin Pepper won the event with James Sprague finishing second, claiming the two available Games spots.

One of the most common running injuries — and one of the most preventable.

When I began training for my first Ironman last winter, about two months into training I was doing a track workout and felt a sharp pulling sensation in my lower calf. At first I thought it was a cramp and tried to keep going, only to realize pretty quickly that it was something more. Pulling my calf was the first and thankfully only real injury I had during my 10 months of Ironman training. What I didn't know at the time was that calf injuries are one of the most common setbacks runners face. However, with the right approach to load management, strength work, and recovery, most calf injuries are entirely avoidable.

Two Muscles, Two Different Failure Modes

The calf isn't a single muscle — it's two, and they tend to fail in different ways.

The gastrocnemius is the larger, visible muscle at the back of the lower leg. It tends to fail acutely — often presenting as a sharp, sudden sensation during a faster or more intense effort. Athletes usually know immediately when this one goes.

The soleus is the deeper, flatter muscle underneath the gastrocnemius. It's the primary workhorse at endurance running paces, and it tends to fail gradually — presenting first as vague tightness or cramping between sessions that athletes dismiss as normal soreness. By the time it becomes a real injury, it's usually been building for weeks. The soleus is the more common culprit in long-distance running builds, and it's the one athletes are least likely to take seriously early enough.

Both muscles undergo thousands of rapid stretch-shortening cycles on every single run. They adapt well to progressive load — but only if given enough time to do so.

Load Management: Watch Your Long Run, Not Just Your Weekly Total

The standard advice for building running mileage has always been the 10% rule — never increase your total weekly mileage by more than 10% in a given week. It's a reasonable guideline, but a landmark study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine tells a more nuanced story. Analyzing data from over 5,200 runners across more than half a million running sessions, researchers found that injury risk was most strongly linked to how much longer a single run was compared to recent training history — not total weekly volume.

The practical implication is significant: jumping from an 8-mile long run to a 12-mile long run puts you at higher risk of a calf injury than increasing weekly mileage from 20 to 24 miles overall. The single session spike is the more acute risk. Weekly volume still matters — but it's the long run that deserves the most careful management.

A sensible framework for building safely:

Strength Work: Build the Calf You Need to Run

The calf is one of the most undertrained muscle groups in recreational runners, and the gap between what most athletes ask of their calves in training and what they've prepared them to handle is where injuries live. These four exercises address that gap directly.

Single-Leg Calf Raise — Straight Leg (Gastrocnemius) Stand on the edge of a step with your heel hanging off. Lower your heel as far as comfortable, then raise up onto the ball of your foot. The key details: single leg, full range of motion, and a slow eccentric phase of at least 3 seconds on the way down. Research shows eccentric calf raises performed at the lengthened position — heel below the step — increase muscle fascicle length and thickness, producing structural changes that make the tissue more resilient to running demands. Training on a flat surface produces significantly less adaptation. 3 sets of 15–20 reps per leg, weighted if possible.

Bent-Knee Single-Leg Calf Raise (Soleus) Same movement pattern, but with your knee bent. Bending the knee takes the gastrocnemius out of the equation and targets the soleus directly — the muscle that does the majority of the work at endurance running paces. This is harder than it looks. Start with bodyweight and progress to weighted over time. 3 sets of 10–15 reps per leg.

Seated Calf Raise — Heavy Loading (Soleus) Sit with a barbell or heavy dumbbell resting across your knees, feet flat on the floor, and drive through the ball of your foot to raise your heels. The seated position keeps the knee bent and isolates the soleus, but allows for heavier loading than the bodyweight version above. For athletes building serious mileage, this is where genuine soleus strength — not just endurance — gets developed. 3 sets of 8–12 reps.

Farmer's Carry on Toes Pick up a pair of dumbbells and walk on the balls of your feet for 20–30 meters. This trains the calf under load in a dynamic, gait-relevant pattern that isolated raises can't replicate — building ankle stability and calf endurance simultaneously while also carrying over to the proprioceptive demands of running. 3 sets of 20–30 meters.

Schedule all strength work on easy run days — never the day before a long run or hard interval session.

Plyometric Progressions: Teaching the Calf to Handle Running Loads

Strength work builds the capacity. Plyometrics teach the calf to express that capacity quickly — which is exactly what running demands with every stride. Progress through these sequentially and don't rush ahead. Each level prepares the tissue for the next.

Ankle Bounces (Pogos) Stand in place and bounce continuously on the balls of your feet with minimal knee bend, keeping ground contact time as short as possible. This is the entry point — it introduces the calf to rapid force generation and absorption without heavy loading. 3 sets of 20–30 seconds.

A-Skips Research comparing the mechanical demands of different plyometric exercises to running confirms that A-skips produce moderate loads across both the gastrocnemius and soleus — lower than running itself — making them an ideal bridge between isolated strength work and the full demands of running. 3 sets of 20 meters. A-Skip example video. 

Single-Leg Hops Progress from controlled single hops to repeated continuous hops on one leg. Significantly more demanding than bilateral exercises and much closer to the functional pattern of running, where every stride is a single-leg loading event. Start with 3 sets of 8–10 hops per leg and build from there.

Depth Jumps Step or drop off a low box — start at 12 inches — land on both feet, and immediately jump straight up. The emphasis is on minimizing ground contact time between landing and takeoff. Research shows depth jumps develop reactive strength and improve the stretch-shortening cycle efficiency of the calf, which translates to both improved running economy and reduced injury risk. The goal is to spend as little time on the ground as possible — land and immediately leave. 3 sets of 5–6 reps. This is a late-stage exercise. Build to it.

Bounding Exaggerated running strides with maximum push-off force per step. Produces high eccentric load across both calf muscles and is best suited for well-conditioned athletes or late in a training build. Not an entry point — earn it.

If You're Already Feeling Tightness

Persistent calf tightness between runs is a signal worth paying attention to. It doesn't necessarily mean injury is imminent, but it does mean the tissue is accumulating more load than it's recovering from. The response isn't to stop — it's to manage.

Allow more recovery time between runs. Tightness that doesn't clear in 24–48 hours after a session is a sign the interval between runs needs to extend. Use a foam roller or massage gun on the calf and soleus daily — working through the tissue regularly reduces stiffness and supports blood flow to the area. Stretch both muscles deliberately: straight-leg calf stretch against a wall for the gastrocnemius, bent-knee version for the soleus, held for 60 seconds each, twice daily. Continue the strength and plyometric work but pull back to the lower-load progressions until the tightness resolves.

If tightness persists beyond two weeks or sharpens into localized pain at a specific point in the muscle, get it assessed before it becomes a full strain. A grade 1 strain returns in days. A grade 2 takes weeks. The gap between the two is often just one run taken too soon.

The Bottom Line

The calf is asked to do an enormous amount of work in every running session — thousands of rapid, forceful contractions across a tissue that most athletes have never specifically trained. Building it strong, teaching it to move fast, and giving it enough time to recover between sessions covers the majority of the injury risk. The prevention protocol adds less than 15 minutes to a training session. It's a straightforward trade for months of uninterrupted training.

For Lifts: RPE 5–6 — Moderate effort. Several reps left in the tank. RPE 7 — Challenging but controlled. This is the default working effort. RPE 8 — Hard. You could do more, but quality would slip. RPE 9 — Very hard. ~1 rep left. Near max for the day. RPE 10 — Max effort. Nothing left.

For Runs: RPE 4–5 = conversational Zone 2. RPE 6–7 = threshold, hard to hold a sentence. RPE 8–9 = race effort.

If you found this useful, forward to your training partners.

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