Despite lecturing myself about layering on the speed gradually, I've gone and rinsed myself during a 5k-ish race, and strained an Achilles. Idiot!
(OK, so I was VERY happy with the time *grin*. A relay leg of 4.76k in 16:32 equates to a sub 17:20 5k, and that's sooner than I thought I'd get there. And look at the great style too....!!)
However, it's cost me over 2 weeks running, as I wait for the Achilles to calm down. And, I've had to bin two expensive race entries for longer slower events as a result. AND, I'm going to have to build up slowly from 2k slow training runs again.
As with all my niggles, I did a 'down tools' straight away. That's usually enough to clear up problems in 2 or 3 days, but after 2 weeks of continued inflammation and 1km aborted test runs, I thought professional help would be prudent. So yesterday I went to see the brilliant Michaela McCallum in Winchester. Michaela confirmed that a sudden jump in distance, speed or even incline, will do the damage, but that in my case there was no serious lasting problem. However, an imbalance in left/right glute/hamstring strength probably wasn't going to help (logically, the weaker left leg has the Achilles problem). And a small knot in the left calf was also found.
So I've got a series of glute exercises to perform, as well as proper instruction on self-massaging the Achilles.
But I'm happy to have been given the all clear to run again!
