Training

The session with Max worked. The pain in the achilles has subsided and I've made a few tentative attempts at running in casual shoes just to check if the pain reappears. In fact, one of these attempts at running was forced upon me as an urgent need to relieve myself following copious cups of tea meant that I had to run down to the park to find a quiet spot beside a tree. This reminds me of walking around town with my parents years ago when Dad was running competitively. Every now and then he would stop, hawk up a gob of spit and deposit this neatly in the road. Mum would be horrified but Dad explained quite calmly that all runners do this !

Anyway, the ankle seemed to be better and so after a couple of days rest having seen the osteo, I decided to give it a try Monday morning. I got up at 6:00 am and ran my old short route around the castle in Maisons Laffitte before heading through the park and then back home. The achilles was quiet for the first 4 kilometres before it began to show that it was still there and a slow discomfort made itself felt.

Luckily the total route is only 7.6km so the last 3 I eased off and finished at 12km/h running the whole loop in 37 minutes exactly. I was pleased to have made it out nonetheless. The rest of the day I could feel my ankle "creak" as the achilles moved the foot up and down. There was a little grinding feeling. in the ankle that lasted all day and only wore off by the evening. This was the first attempt at getting out again and boy did it feel good.

The frsutration when you can't run is tremendous and the relief at being out again, despite the slight discomfort from the 4th kilometre onwards, was huge. The feeling of achievement, of freedom and of fitness is only something that I can find in my running routine. It's good to be back albeit slightly diminished from the achilles still.

The room

Three knocks on the plain wooden door off the narrow landing. Nothing happens. I check the nameplate beside the door and it is correct. I wonder how many other people living in the flat can have the same name. It's already taken me a good twenty minutes to find the block of flats in a maze of urban construction just south of Paris. No, this has to be the place.

The door opens and an old man with grey hair lets me enter.

"I thought I would get up and let you in. I don't know how long he'll be".

So, apparently the man is not the person I've come to see and I enter the flat following my doorman as he enters what must be the waiting room. I sit down on one of the chairs lining the walls of the small room and examine my surroundings. The decoration is mid-seventies with previously garish wallpaper now faded and starting to peel off the walls in places. The light switch is coming away from the wall too with the wiring just visible behind the beige bakelite casing. The only natural light comes into the room from a small window at the far end of the room with a view out over the concrete jungle outside.

Several cycling shirts have been pinned to the wall, their bright colours in direct contrast with the faded wallpaper. All have been signed by local or national cyclists expressing their thanks to the osteopath: "Many thanks to Max and his magic fingers" is a typical comment and encourages me. I ask myself if he'll be able to work wonders on me and enable me to start training again after almost a month of rest now.

A very short man about 60 years old comes out from a room, helping an old lady to one of the seats. My doorman appears to be her husband and listens carefully as the osteo explains that the neck problem she suffers from was probably caused at birth from a forceps delivery. I can't help but feel that the 120 kilograms of fat that she has to carry every day aren't doing anything to help her condition. A last word of encouragement from Max to the woman and it's my turn to to be treated.

I enter the room with Max and tell him about the achilles problem I have. He makes me lie down on the bench and grabs my left leg in both hands massaging first the achilles and then the calf. He pulls the skin away from the achilles and pinches down the back of the calf and along the tendon to the ankle. He might have magic fingers but this is really hurting. He holds my left foot down with one hand as he treats the ankle and calf with the other. The temptation to fight back and kick out is strong hence the footholding.

The treatment continues for half an hour and by the end my left leg feels that it has been bruised into submission. He explains that the problem with the achilles is the lack of blood supply and that his treatment encourages the circulation to that area. This is his version of chinese acupuncture using a pinching technique. I'm ready to take the pain as long as I know that it'll succeed in enabling me to run shortly. He tells me to rest for a couple of days and then to start running easily again afterwards. Relieved of my cash and my calf and ankle bruised to hell, I leave the room and walk downstairs to go outside. Was it worth the bother ?

Malakoff 5km

Something had gone wrong somewhere. I had been quite excited and looking forward to this event, but something had snapped, almost literally, and all the expectant pleasure had all but disappeared for the event yesterday. There were two reasons to be excited about this race: firstly, it was the opener for the challenge with Nico. Although, I didn't really fancy my chances against him on such a short distance, I tought that I would give it a good shout and that anyway I would be able to achieve a PB and beat my objective of 17:45 (or even 17:30 in my wildest dreams). Secondly, I had managed to persuade, convince and cajole a dozen other guys from work to participate in their first ever (for most of them) running race situated in the same town as work. I just couldn't pull out now but was my achilles really up to it.

The answer to my last question was resolved almost as soon as we arrived. Laurence, Nico and I jogged from the office to the main square to pick up everybody's bibs for the race. Laurence was looking at me expectantly as we jogged, knowing that it wasn't sensible to take part and trying to convince me to run with her instead and 'take it easy'. After those first few steps, I realised immediately that she was right but didn't want to tell her as I'd put myself into a position that I couldn't readily back down from now. My achilles pulled hard and was very uncomfortable. the pain wasn't enough to convince me to stop but sufficient to inform me that I was doing myself no good at all. Still, I'd got this far, I wasn't going to back down now.

We ran back to the office with the bibs and met everybody who was taking part. We were 9 in all. The three off us, sporting our St Germain tracksuits and 6 almost complete novices to running. Nico asked if we shouldn't go for a warm-up so I told him that he should but that for the others, 5kms in itself would be sufficient challenge, let alone a couple of extra kilometres to get the muscles warm. We lined up at the start, Laurence and I thankful that the weather was far warmer than last year when we'd stood in the very same spot, freezing cold waiting for the gun. I joked with Nico about my shape and told him that the guy who finished just ahead of me in Conflans, Fred who was also there, would take my place in the challenge as I wasn't up to it.

The gun went and we set off. 2 weeks without running meant that I had plenty of energy from the start. I told myself to take it easy and after 500m, I was wondering where Nico was when I saw him just to my left as I was on his shoulder. This didn't last long though as I saw Nico move ahead and was unable to respond with Fred following him just afterwards. When we went through the first kilometre they we already 30 metres ahead of me. My Garmin beeped a little early and I saw 3:15 for the first km. There was a clock visible too so I was able to see that the actual time was closer to 3:25 but it was still fast.

There is then an uphill section in the second kilometre as we ran up to the stadium and around the track before leaving the stadium on the far side. The Garmin beeped again, showing 3:49. This was understandable that the time had slowed but I was losing my energy and from then on I just lost the fight to push it. My achilles was a constant nag, not actually hurting but pulling. It would be easy to say that this caused me to slow, but I think it was the lack of go from 2 weeks running abstinence that was the bigger problem. The achilles didn't help.

I settled then into an uncomfortable dissatisfaction: not happy with my pace and not really able to do anything about it. The Garmin beeped 3 times for kms 3, 4 and 5 all showing 3:50 or just faster than my half-marathon pace. Nico and Fred had long since disappeared and the final blow was being overtaken by a guy in the final kilometre and not responding and then by another 2 with 300 metres to go. I lost 3 places in the space of 2 minutes with no reponse available or forthcoming. Total depression. My final time was 18:47 in 26th place, a minute slower than where I wanted to be and almost 30 seconds down on last year. Nico had finished in 17:43 and in 14th place. I would have been thrilled to achieve that.

The real satisfaction was in hearing Laurence's name being announced at the finishing line, crossing the line in 22:29 a full minute faster than last year. She was chuffed to bits, quite rightly and had beaten all the other guys from work. She delighted in telling me afterwards how they'd all gone out fast and then she picked them off one by one throughout the race. She was over the moon.

We went back to the office for some drinks and a chat over our respective races and it was then that I realised exactly how bad the achilles was again. The ache was back and now matter how much Voltaren I rubbed in this wasn't going to disappear. This is perhaps why it took me a day to write this blog as I worry about how long this will now take to mend. My marathon in London now strikes me as being very close if I'm to prepare for this properly. I was supposed to start the 10 week preparation this week. It'll now be an 8 week preparation at best. All other objectives are now out of the window as I concentrate on getting over this injury. 'Damn and blast' for lack of a stronger expression. Depressed, miserable and full of self-pity. Luckily Laurence is understanding as I'm not much fun today.