Had my boy's school's sports day last weekend. Enjoyed that and I'm please to report that although they both came last in their 100 meter races they were only last by a few feet not the long last that they usually are! Doesn't take much to make this Dad proud ;)
Had to take a day off yesterday due to work and frankly feeling spent. The ankles and Achilles are tender and sore to the touch and I've been avoiding hungry cats, small children and shopping trolleys, basically anything that might inadvertently rub and/or bump them.
This week will be just over 170K, down from last week still on track and higher than this time last marathon build up. One thing, if you want to run high mileage I'd suggest you always get in a good run before breakfast. If you miss that one it is hard to make it up in the evening and I find, more often than not, that if I miss the morning run I will take the day off altogether, rather than try to make it up or just do a short one.
Anyway back to work. Uploaded are some photos from the kid's sports day.
Hope you're all well.
Well 100m runs mean little. I recall in Deek's book he was struggling with the shorter stuff at first...then he ran a Cross country.
ReplyDeleteI have virtually stopped running due to very bad achilles! I am planning on resting for 42 days and doing lots of (very boring) swimming.
What do YOU do for your achilles to keep functioning? If you are running 170 Km a week you must be doing something very right!
Thanks
Jon
PS Back in Japan in a week. :-)
Hey Jon
ReplyDeleteNice to hear from you.
In answer to your question. My achilles has been a problem for the past couple of years. Thesedays I'm standing on a high step and dropping the heal down one foot at a time to stretch them out. This works but almost every run they are sore at the start yet after the first 5K mostly give me little trouble.
I'm just living with the pain and would take time off if I thought it would work but, in my case more than a day off doesn't help in fact it makes things worse, really tight and sore, if I take too much time off once back into training.
We are all different and if yours doesn't sometimes feel better at the end of your run then just living with it may not be an option for you and you'll have to take some time completely off.
Still try the stretches first.
All the best.
Jon, I vouch for the stretching too. Also, having flexible shoes, and shoes that have padding (or at least don't rub) around the achilles area.
ReplyDeleteScott, sadly I can't do 'before breakfast' running as my shift starts at 6am. I also found the achilles were much more 'dodgy' in the AM, rather than the PM. Gradual warm-up (slow jogging) seems to work well - Deek was famous for this - starting his 22 miler at a slow jog for the first few k.
I like the 100m finish photo! But what are all the kids doing wearing green arm warmers?! ;)
The boys are bound to have long distance runners' genes, not sprinting ones.
ReplyDeleteI can vouch for the effectiveness of the heel drops on the achilles. Keep doing them.
Thanks Scott and Ewen,
ReplyDeleteI am right into the stretching but also cutting right back to almost nothing...nothing means 100m...it used to mean 7 km.
Look forward to running with you guys one day....
Thanks
jon