Two careless mistakes.....

2 x 1k @ 3:38, 3:27 with 90 SR, 4k WU, 4k WD.

Yesterday saw the inch long area of discomfort in my plantar fasciitis lengthen all the way from the ball to the heel. Fortunately, I was still able to walk with very little discomfort. Nevertheless, I made an emergency appointment to see my regular podiatrist, Ashley Mahoney at UQ this afternoon. After I fessed up to some of the stupid things I've done recently, Ash pinpointed the following as most probably causing my PF problem

1 - Running about 200m of the Gold Coast Half Marathon backwards. It seemed like a good idea at the time to turn around and offer some encouragement to the pack I was pacing, but I'm paying the price for it now. Ash says that instead of the normal process of PF inflexion when running, it did the opposite, probably causing a small tear that has slowly lengthened over the past week whilst also creating tightness in the area.

2 - Letting the mileage of one pair of my Brooks Glycerin 4's blow out to 826k's - at least 100k's past their retirement date. This, to a much lesser extent was another problem. I normally check my shoe mileage before every pod appt, but rescheduled my last two appts, leading to this debacle. It didn't help that my orthotics masked the breakdown of the shoe's midsection to some degree. Nevertheless, this is an amateur mistake and I'm quite cranky with myself for it!

On the bright side, I've been doing most things right in my treatment of the PF so far. Ash now has me taping it up with strapping tape and says I get to keep using Ally's Strasburg sock. Ash also suggested telling Bruno to 'go medium' at my next rub on Friday. However, i'm not sure Bruno understands the concept of medium... :) Oh yeah, did I mention I can keep running?

Driving home from the appointment with Ash, I couldn't bear the thought of going to the gym so did my session at Kedron Brook at dusk. With a full moon reflecting of the Kedron Brook channel leading to the bay, I did my first k along the smooth bitumen path next to the channel into a reasonable headwind. Targetting 3:40's for the session, I opened with a nice 3:38. I told myself to take it easy for the second k with the tailwind sure to be worth five seconds and was surprised to record 3:27, with plenty left in the tank. Its nice to be running that fast again :)

Km's this week - 10
Km's this month - 84
Km's this year - 746
Consecutive alcohol free days - 44