Them's the Breaks

With no foreshadowing, no inkling that something was about to happen, my left Achilles decided to "give out" towards the latter third of my morning 10km run. Crap!

I hesitate to call this a really grave setback, but I am definitely limping. I was too far away from home as it started to tighten up to not keep going, though I did slow down a lot to try and protect it. Oh well, onwards we go with never ending saga of the wonky body bits...

Misty Mountain Hopping

Finished off my longest week since the "comeback" at a respectable barely worth noting 50km. Nevertheless, it's a milestone of sorts for me so there...

How, might you be wondering, did my running add up to such an impressive number?

Well, there are two reasons:

Reason 1: I ran to and from work for the first time in several years. 9km there, 7km back. Normally on a Wednesday I'd only run 6km, so this added 10km to the total right there. Bang!

Reason 2: As I sat on 37km for the week waking up Sunday morning I had a 10km run on the schedule. Naturally, as the injury prone yet motivated and competitive (with himself) runner is wont to do I had to run 13km to get to the aforementioned magic number of 50km for the week.

And there it is.

Lastly, here's what I ran through on Sunday near the cottage:

Nice and foggy, and the roads are very quiet. I've already mentioned that it's hilly, and you can see a drop off coming up in the first picture, which was the direction in which I was running at the time. Both were taken from the same spot, from whence I came, and to whence I was going...

The out and back elevation profile is always fun too (first photo was taken just before the 4km mark I guess):

Hills, Rain, but no Dogs

Ran that long run (21km) near the cottage this morning to finish off my highest mileage week in nearly two years at a paltry 48km (~30 miles). Oh well... Baby steps.

I did NOT get attacked by dogs (GOOD), I DID get soaked with rain and experienced nipple chafe (BAD), and I had a very slow and tougher than expected run all told (MEH). I was trying to keep my average heart rate under 143bpm, and did succeed with a 141bpm final tally.

The hills are out to prove just how out of shape I am:

It's not "mountain running", but it's not exactly flat either. I almost got lost as well, so it's a good thing I was carrying my phone with me as I was quickly able to dial up the maps app and get back on track. Whew!

Summer Forecast: Hills and Dogs

I spent the weekend at the cottage and, as will hopefully be the norm for the Summer, ran my Sunday 12km on the rural roads. My biggest worry is strange dogs running out at me as I run past, and getting lost. One of these things I can plan for, the other I might have to buy some sort of repellent spray and carry it with me. (Luckily, the only canine I had to contend with was rather loud and scary, but remained within the limits of his property's boundary despite the lack of fencing. Whew!)

But the other thing I will definitely have to contend with is the HILLS! We acquired this little shack/hovel last Fall and it sits on a lake at the top of a hill. It's high enough that my ears always pop when we drive up there, but I recognize it's not actually that high up. Nevertheless, for the injury prone runner who is used to relatively flat terrain the hills around this lake are a bit of a challenge.

Case in point, as I ran my easy 12km run in the beautiful countryside I stumbled upon a major decline that I easily traversed, but recognized that I would have to get back up on the way home. I wasn't carrying anything with me, preferring to run with no extraneous contraptions (i.e. no water bottles, no iPods, no fuel belts, no cell phone, etc.). In this instance it didn't matter, but in the future I might have to carry some of the above. Had I done it this time I would have snapped a photo of the hill as it really did surprise me how long and steep it was, but alas, all I have is the elevation profile from Garmin Connect:

When looking at the above I am aware that it simply doesn't do the hill justice. That or I am really out of shape. Perhaps a bit from each of column A and B?

Anyway, it was surprisingly a good run, though my heart rate went higher than I'd have liked due to both the hill(s) and the weather (which was rather warm, sunny and humid). With this being the shortest (or one of the shortest) Sunday runs I will do all Summer it means that I will likely encounter more than just one of these types of hills on my long runs. I look forward to the challenge, discovering new territory, and hopefully getting stronger, all the while keeping a keen eye on that heart rate to ensure that I am not over stressing my pathetic "system". Next week I hope to see just how things will pan out as I have a 21km run on the schedule.

Here's to not getting lost or bitten!

Strange Days

WWell, things are moving in the right direction, I think. After last weekend's Ultimate tournament, wherein yours truly played five games in two days (four on the Saturday alone), drank too much booze, and slept max 2 hours each night, things were likely to be a bit strange this week as I tried to get back into training.

Sure enough, Tuesday morning I was to run 7-9km and chose, wisely, the lower end of that range. It was quite slow, very stiff, and all of the various aches and pains were magnified in the early morning hour. I did feel a bit better as the run progressed, but this run was THE definition of recovery.

Wednesday morning I once again chose the lower end of the 5-6km range and things were going quite nicely until the last kilometre. The aches and pains were less and I was running much more smoothly, but then I felt a sharp pain in the upper right quad/groin that gave me pause for concern. I finished the run, but the rest of the day I was in quite a bit of discomfort. Not good. Didn't know if stretching was the right course of action, didn't want to take pain killers to mask the pain, so I just muddled through the day.

Thursday would normally be a leg weight training day, but I decided to skip the legs and instead do some more upper body on account of the quad thing. Although I woke up pretty much pain free, by the afternoon the pain was creeping back into the region. I did do a bit of stretching and that seemed to help, but by bedtime I was concerned that my Friday morning run would be compromised.

That brings us up to date, and this morning I gingerly set off on my prescribed 7-9km run. I wasn't sure how my leg would react or how far I'd be able to go. Concentrating on keeping things slow and easy and, in particular, making sure that my stride was short kept me safe and I managed to complete 9km none the worse for wear.

So, that's the way the recovery after the Ultimate tournament is likely to go for a bit longer. Seems that my body has a few surprises in store and the aches and pains move around a bit. I guess as long as this continues I can't be too unhappy given that nothing has been a major issue, though it does enforce the whole running slow and easy ethos under which I have been training since the start of the year. I do look forward to something other than slow plodding, however, and have hope that in the coming weeks I will be able to start some basic mile repeats and the like.