19 January 2015
Today really was hot and had a bright blue sky; the forecast high temperature is 73°F. There is, also, a slight (very slight) breeze blowing along the ridge of the Summit Drive hill, though.
Yesterday was a recovery day–even though I had given a little thought to completing Saturday’s aborted Long Run (but, that thinking occurred Saturday and disappeared on Sunday morning! I may have benefited from a recovery walk, yesterday; but, that did not happen…I did nothing but relax/recover. However, I did decide to continue with my current Base Build program and force myself to actually run the rest of the scheduled runs at my current, calculated, easy pace.
Endurance Running – Week 10 of 13 Weeks, Day 1 of 4 Days
Surprisingly, my legs felt fairly fresh at the beginning of today’s WU and I felt very good and optimistic. During the first six minutes of today’s WU, I could tell that my left achilles still had some residual soreness from Saturday’s incidents; but, as those first six minutes ticked off, the soreness eased and I was ready for the three 20-second strides.
The Summit Drive steep grade proved that my body had not yet fully recovered from Saturday’s 8 mile, aborted Long Run. However, when I reached the crest, I thought that I would just enjoy the run, hopefully at whatever slow pace I might run, rather than push myself to maintain a faster pace.
Actually, the run was going quite well ’til about Mile 3.5-4.0, when my left achilles gave me a brief sensation of weakness and the soreness in my achilles returned. The incident of weakness was so brief that I easily recovered; however, during the remainder of today’s run, I experienced the sensation about five more times. Each time, I noticed that my cadence had slowed, I was slightly overstriding, I was leaning from the waist, and my glutes were not involved (or were minimally involved) in propelling me forward. In my understanding, those are all signs of poor form–I had reverted to my old running form. And, with each achilles’ incident, today, the soreness in my left achilles increased.
I do not know what caused my reverting to poor form–maybe, I’ll never know–but, focusing upon keeping/maintaining my cadence up, leaning from my ankles (not from my waist), and engaging my glutes; i.e., running with good running form, eased the soreness in my left achilles. So, after the end of today’s scheduled training run, I allowed myself, during the KD (cool down) to slow my cadence, but continued to focus upon my running form as well as I could.
Tonight, my left achilles is definitely sore–not incapacitating, though–just sore. So, it’ll be a one, 200mg ibuprofen tablet night. Hopefully, the soreness will be gone tomorrow for the scheduled, easy pace, Mid-Week training run (8 miles).
Happy Running!!!