I tore my right calf muscle (medial gastrocnemius, I think it's called) in a skiing accident in February. Very painful. Couldn't even put weight on my right foot for a while. Serious limping for several days. Fortunately, though, the holiday insurance agreed to pay for three physio sessions whilst I was out there (in the French alps) and each day I was able to do a little more. I kept as active as I could as the muscle felt worse after periods of sitting down, but I also elevated the affected leg when resting and sleeping.

Couldn't run for almost two weeks. Kept up my swimming though. Calf strengthening and stretching exercises & self-massage.

The reason I post this is to encourage others with torn calf muscles that they're not Always as slow to heal as some people on this thread have experienced. I've been fortunate and managed to resume running after two weeks, ran 26.5 miles off road after 3 weeks and did a fell race today (just under 4 weeks since the accident). Yes, I can still feel the injury a bit and need to keep stretching and strengthening it, but it wasn't the disaster that I'd first thought it would be.

Hope this helps someone else.

Leaf