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.