I think (I hope!) that you have pointed out the elephant in the room, Finchr - thank you! On each occasion I've strained the left calf, it's been running the day after performing lifts. It gets tight after doing lifts, and running with a tight calf is a stupid idea, as I've found out.

Unless anyone's got a better idea (I'm now 3 weeks into the injury) my plan is to start a programme of massaging and gentle stretching, without strength work. Once I've been free of discomfort for a couple of weeks I'll start some brisk walking on a treadmill. If that goes ok I'll go back to easy running. I intend to spend as long getting back into training as I've been out (even though this means the new 5K season will be effectively trashed until late summer :-( ), i.e. if total time out is 8 weeks, I'll spend 8 weeks gently increasing mileage until I'm back to the previous amount.

Do you think that, because the pain didn't stop me from running, but came on abruptly after finishing a gruelling 7 mile training track session, that there's a good chance I'll make a good recovery? I keep reading about so many runners whose running days have been ended due to calf pulls... I've never had one this bad and it really scares me...

Thanks again.