A Lean and Hungry Look

Bad news: my achilles tendinitis is back with a vengeance.  After a couple of months of minimal mileage, I am paying for my back-to-back-to-back semi-long runs at the end of last week.  I started feeling AT pain in the first few miles of Thursday's 9.5-mile run home from Extra Space, so I made sure to stretch it more over the ensuing few days.  It felt better the next day (most of the run was slightly downhill, so that would make sense), but it bugged me throughout Saturday's run and was pretty sore in the final couple of miles.  As a result, I took Monday off and thought I'd be fine by today.  Not so.  I went to Steiner, warmed up with 1.5 or so at an easy pace, then planned to do 3 1-mile repeats with about 1/4 mile active recovery in between.  The first mile was at 5:27 pace and felt hard but not bad, except for pretty noticeable AT pain.  I stretched it a few times, jogged a bit, then went to try a second repeat.  The pain was bad enough that I knew it was time to call it quits.  In hopes of salvaging something, I went over to the elliptical and did a hard interval workout for 20 minutes.  I don't think the HR monitor was working right, because it kept putting me in the 140 range, which is where I am on a light jog.  The AT was bugging me the entire time, but I figured that the minimal impact from the elliptical wasn't going to exacerbate any damage.

When I stepped off the elliptical, I could barely walk.  I stretched for a while, then hobbled down to the shower, back to my car, then started icing it as soon as I got home.  I also took 3 prednisone tablets (left over from my last bout of AT) and iced it 3-4 more times before bed.

I've been over 2 years without any AT trouble, but it looks like I might be headed right back into the thick of it.  I'll wait a few days before doing anything active, then I'll start trying the eccentric loading exercises.  In the meantime, I'll try doing some weight training and stretching, and possibly some work on the stationary bike.

Good thing I'm not training to run Boston for myself.  It may be the perfect year to run it with Brooke.

Okay, I didn't run 15 today.  My left AT is still in pretty bad shape, so I haven't been able to run since Tuesday.  However, I'm now 5 days into my prednisone prescription and able to walk without pain most of the time, so I decided to try going to the gym to see what I could handle.  I ended up spending 30 minutes on a stationary bike (around 12 miles) and 90 minutes on 2 different elliptical machines (I needed a change of scenery to keep from becoming suicidal due to boredom).  I'm calling the effort the very rough equivalent of 15 miles.  After 30 minutes on the bike, I was starting to chafe (left the biker shorts at home), so I decided to try the elliptical to see if the AT could hack it.  I didn't feel any pain, so I kept going.  I realize that 90 minutes on a elliptical is not the same as running for 90 minutes on the road, or even on a treadmill, but that's about as close as I'm going to get for a little while.  I tried to keep an honest turnover going (between 175-225 strides per minute, depending on the tension), but I don't think my HR ever stayed much about 155 bpm (the machine I spent the last 60 minutes on kept wigging out and showing me at 235 bpm, then 100 bpm, then everything in between, so I really have no idea).

At least I have the elliptical as an option for a while.