I came into this week feeling a bit apprehensive – although given the go ahead to start training with a bit more vigour, I still needed to shake the chest infection/cold thing that I’d had for the past week. I thought I’d test the water on Monday with an easy run just to see how I felt – achilles was spot on, not a whiff of pain, but the very cold weather wasn’t so good for my chest and by the third mile I was starting to feel it a bit so I rounded up to four miles (think I’m starting to get Garmin OCD!) and called it a night. I still didn’t feel brilliant for the rest of the week, opting to miss swim training again on Wednesday but had set myself a target of running home from work on Friday. It was about 10 miles and although not the safest of routes (mostly redways through MK – and MK Council clearly don’t pay their electric bills…) I took it really nice and steady. I was shattered by the end of it – more to do with coming out of illness that poor fitness but I was really pleased as there was no pain from my ankle at all.
Saturday was the DLRR MultiSports cycle training event so I got the bike out for the first time this year and rode to the MK Bowl, spend an hour and a half doing circuits and drills then cycled home – except I didn’t make it home! Anyone in the MK area will know that Saturday was horrible – minus temperatures and snow – not the sort of snow that lays but the really cold arctic icy stuff the stings your face and had the wind to match. Two thirds of the way home I lost all feeling in my hands and feet and couldn’t change gears or brake – bit of a problem when the last two miles covered the A5 – a major A road…Fortunately my parents live on the route home and I headed there to warm up before my dad very kindly bunged my bike in his car and drove me home!
I was excited about the club run on Sunday – it was about 12 miles and after my 10 miles on Friday I felt ready to start to join back in the club runs – I knew I’d have to take it easy and just go with the flow. It was great to see everyone and those that have been geeing me up the last few weeks. Trouble was within the first two miles I was in trouble – I had the same pain in my achilles that I had all those weeks before. I stopped and did some stretching and that helped but after 4 miles I knew I had to call it a day. I was gutted but knew it was the right thing to do – only trouble was I was now four miles from the car so took a long walk back via the canal to the MK Dons stadium. So even though the club run was aborted I still got just under 8 miles out of it – every cloud and all that!
Since then I’ve iced and stretched and I have no pain or swelling which is a good sign – I’m hoping it was just my body’s way of telling me two long runs in 3 days was too much. I’ll give it a gentle test on Tuesday to see what’s what and take it from there. And as one of my club mates told me on Sunday, there’s not only eight weeks to go, there’s still eight weeks to go….
Monday – 4 miles very easy
Tuesday – rest
Wednesday – rest
Thursday – rest
Friday – 10.5 miles
Saturday – 25 miles bike (including circuits at the MK Bowl
Sunday – 7.75 miles
Miles for the week – 22.25 miles
runwithchips 