A week of woe

Tues - 50 mins, 10 k's @ 4:52 mins/km
Wed 70 mins, 14k's @ 4:54 mins/km
Thurs - Injury enforced rest
Fri - 50 mins, 10k's @ 5:10 mins/km

After a couple of days early in the week beating myself up over Sunday's dismal performance, I finally accepted that something wasn't quite right on the day and my best efforts couldn't change that. I was under the pump from the second k which felt harder than it should have and I started to leak time steadily from the 7k. So this one goes into the dustbin. I've also learnt that I might be able to get away with a few hiccups prior to a 5 or 10k race and run well, but not prior to a half Marathon. In future, if this Half Marathon was a goal race such as Noosa, I would pull out, but if it was a key lead up race to a Marathon, I would still do it if I couldn't switch to another half.

More pressing problems arose on Wedneday when I succumbed to pain in the Achilles 70 minutes into a 90 min run. I tried stretching the Achilles about 4 or 5 times and then resumed my run but on each occasion the pain returned so I had to make a forlorn 3k walk back to my car including walking along the road shoulder of the Gateway Arterial as cars whizzed by at 100k's an hour. I texted Bruno when I got home and he was kind enough to take the time to recommend doing 20 min ice on and off followed by 10 minutes application of a heat pack, repeating as much as I can.

I rested on Thursday as I still had discomfort, particularly when walking down steps, but I had recovered sufficiently to do an easy 50 mins on the tready on Friday. Upon visiting Bruno for my regular rub on Friday, Bruno diagnosed the problem as a very tight soleus muscle -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soleus_muscle - considerably less serious than an achilles problem which was the first good news I had all week. Bruno proceeded to give the offending muscle an almighty bashing in what was one of the most painful rubs I've had in two years, but it did the trick as most of the tightness has since gone away.