Bruised and battered but not Broken

Forgot to update you folks on the achilles situation and the plan for Sunday - To race or not to race. After spending an hour and a half getting therapy on both my achilles mainly my left since the right is more irritated than injured, the therapist told me that there were no signs on a tear - he put me through a bunch of diagnostic tests and a grueling soft tissue massage which although it was painful as hell at the time did wonders for my recovery. We also did some myofacial release on the extra-firm foam roller mixed with actively dorsi/plantar flexing my foot with the goal of increasing my range-of-motion. This followed by a slush bath and huge improvement in the amount of swelling and pain. Still though after trying to do some calf raises my achilles was still in pain so I was still unsure about Sunday. But then came Thursday. I woke up looked at my left foot and my God I could actually see some definition in the tendon. Another ice session and more foam rolling and I was off to school. I focused nicely, took solid notes, and yes was confident about my chances of racing on Sunday. One professor who is an athletic therapist told me to get an achilles compression brace to help vascularize the area and promote healing, as well as prevent the tendon from rupturing. Both the professor and the therapist from Wed. said running on Sunday at race pace will be putting alot of stress on the tendons and since they are weak and fragile at the moment and therefore I would be taking a risk - risking a bigger more substantial injury. However, I asked the therapist, "Basically I know it's risky but will it be possible to run." His answer, "Warm it up really good before the race and if you feel your calf starting to tense up immediately stop running to prevent the tendon from tearing." Good, so then it's settled. After a run in with my brace and new adios 2.0 my legs were feeling solid, by the end of the run both tendons (especially the right since unfortunately no running store in Canada had two of the braces so I could only buy one) were in some pain but nothing that was going to stop me from toeing the line on Sunday.

So the race plan is as follows: I'm not going to check the confirmation list this time because it is unreliable and many people register late for halfs. I don't want to go into the race thinking this is an easy win or easy top 5, or whatever. I want to go in with the mindset of I'm just going to put my head down (figuratively of course since I need to look ahead) and just run a good race. Sure, because this week I haven't exactly prepared for this race as I would have liked too since I haven't done any workouts since Monday morning so not really feeling in PB form, however, I am depending on all the hard workouts I did throughout the season especially in the last 5-6 weeks of training to carry me to a successful race. Apparently the course is rather hilly to start (which quite Frankly I'm not looking forward to since uphills are what aggravate the achilles tendon the most) and then flattens out when we run through the roads surrounding the vineyards - supposed to be a quite pretty course especially now around the fall time. The weather looks good supposed to be 12 degrees and sunny although there is supposed to be a rather stiff 25km/h NW wind. In terms of the run plan I want to run a negative split. I'm not going to say I'm going to run a 34min 10k then a 33:45 and finish sub 1:12 because as a said before alot of my pacing for this race due to my achilles situation will just be playing it by feel - so I'm not going to set my sight on a specific pace to keep or time to get. The only real time goal I will say is I'll be happy with anything under 1:15 and content with sub 1:16 but still knowing that going to STWM I will need to run two back to back 1:17s to achieve my goal  2:34 time. Honestly, before the achilles issue I was thinking 1:10 but in this sport you just have to roll with the punches. Until, Sunday afternoon happy running and my tip of the day, Every time you are struggling to get out the door or out on a tough run think to yourself what would you rather be doing, would you rather be icing your legs on the couch and feeling like a sloth, cherish your runs, and embrace the feeling of your heart racing and legs screaming to stop because there is nothing better. 

One Step forwards, Two steps backwards

After by far the best training block of my still young running career, the injury bug has reared its ugly head yet again. Five consecutive weeks of over 200 kilometers per week, and one 230 kilometer week my body was tired, sure, but feeling strong and fast. On the 230km week, I had one workout where I did 4 times 3 miles at 3:15/km pace and it felt easy. I was starting to think in this weekend's half marathon in St Catharines I would break 1:10 easily. The  times on the Mile repeats, 800s, 400s, and 25-35 minute threshold runs were significantly lowering. Long Runs of 40+ kilometers, 3 41km ones and one 42.2km long run strangely felt quite easy. The 42.2km (Marathon distance) was done during that 230km week and was done at what then felt like conversational pace - although it was still 2:45:37. After that I actually felt like I could kept going, and that for the first time since I set my goal time months and months ago I actually truly believed that I would run 2:34 on Oct 20 without too much trouble. Well then came the Sept 9 week. On Monday (the day after that 42k long run) I felt pretty good. On Wed despite the brutal humidity I battled for a 2 hour easy run, and then took to the track that evening for some mile repeats. After the second repeat I actually lowered to the ground because my heart was pounding - my HR felt way too high and it was not recovering to normal after the interval. I just didn't feel right, but grinded out 6 more mile repeats at a sub-par pace. The next day I thought I would make up for the somewhat wasted workout the day before and hammer 12 800m repeats. Well that didn't go as planned and again my times were sub-par (still pretty fast but not nearly as quick as the weeks prior). Friday was a day off from school so in the morning I pulled out a pair of Kinvaras that I used in Feb-Mar and went on a 32k run on trails. I felt great. For the first time all week I felt I was getting my mojo back. I thought maybe the extreme fatigue and lack of pace was just residing fatigue from Sunday's long run (even though I had felt fine right after it). That evening I went on a medium effort run and that also went well. Saturday I got up in good time, pulled out those shoes from yesterday since they felt so good and went for another 32k trail run - even faster than the day before. 

Then came Sunday, a 40km long run was on the table. I looked at my Adizero Tempo which now had 650km on them, and looked at the kinvaras which I used the previous two days. I thought since those kinvaras already had 650k on them and I just added 64km (and at the end of the last run in them they were started to feel pretty dead) maybe I'll just try another pair of kinvaras from Apr-May for this run since obviously in those months I was prematurely switching shoes. Well, as they say hindsight is 20-20 because I can clearly see how stupid of a decision that was. Why on earth would you try something new (and by new I mean old) with 7 days to go until a key race in my progression to STWM on Oct 20. At 15k some achilles pain in my left leg started to creep up. At the time although it started to hurt pretty badly, us endurance athletes have trained ourselves to block out signals from our body during the course of a run and just keep going. The big hills in woodland acres (25k) were brutal. My achilles was in agony but still I thought to myself (actually I think it may have been out loud) "power-through." Eight k to go and I thought well despite some pain this distance feels quite easy as my legs still feel great, my hamys are happy, and then suddenly my right achilles goes. I've had achilles tendinitis before but never to this extent and never in both achilles. This time it felt a little different (much more sudden and stabbing pain). But like a stupid trooper I kept going. I said to myself it's just to shoes, tomorrow when you where your adidas it will be back to normal. Finished the run and maybe because I had football on to watch for the next 9 hours and I was pretty happy with how short 40km actually felt I didn't think much of the injuries.

Monday: I had a run planned pre-class (a 25k w/ a 25min threshold run). The uphills hurt like hell the rest was okay. That evening: a solid 14k planned - I changed my route so that it was all flat but now flat, uphill, downhill all of it hurt. Tuesday: 10 minutes late for class because I could barely walk across campus. Couldn't focus for 6 straight hours of lectures because all I could think about was what have I done and what is next. How long will this last. Will I run Sunday, will I even be able to run Oct 20. Finally, after class I needed to get some answers so today I have an appointment at the Athletic Therapy clinic. Hopefully, they can look at both and tell me if there is any possibility of the tendon rupturing if I choose to run on Sunday. Basically, I want to know is this just a bad case of tendonitis and if so I could just push through the excruciating pain on Sunday but run nonetheless, or is this something more like a partial tear on the tendon which could rupture if I choose to run on Sunday. If I run will I change this from a 2-3 week long injury into a 6-12 month long injury. If I don't run what does that mean. The problem is, if I choose not to run on Sunday will I be able to run next week. If I were to let's say be running again on Tuesday I will feel guilty and feel like maybe I could of toed the line on Sunday. Then comes the issue well if I choose not to run on Sunday and don't run the next week to facilitate the recovery process how will that effect Oct 20. I've never heard of someone taking multiple weeks off a month before a marathon to recover from an injury. Three weeks before is when your supposed to be in peak physical shape ready to PR, and starting to taper to 80%, then 70%, then possible 50% of your mileage the week of the race. Going to sound weird when I say this but instead of the injury just being tendinitis somewhere deep inside of me I actually wish I was something like a tear because than at least there is a more concrete time frame to the recovery process. Tendinitis is more of a let's play it by ear kind of thing where every morning I will wake up and try to do a calf raise or passive stretch without pain. Honestly I am still kind of in the I can't believe this is happening stage (even though I know why it happened - because I'm obsessive and stubborn) but I don't have to much time to dwell on it. I need to quickly assemble a plan of action. Hopefully my meeting with the therapist will help me lay out the blueprint to this plan. As a future physiotherapist I do know that I need to set small attainable goals for recovery. Goal #1 get this swelling/inflammation down. Last night I suffered through two 15 minute ice (ya bags of ice) baths, and a cocktail of tropic NSAID (voltaren emulgel) and oral NSAID (extra strength ibuprofen). Once the swelling is down I will reassess the situation and set Goal #2, the ultimate goal obviously being to return to running as soon as possible hopefully pain free and determined. I will update tonight on the situation after my appointment. O just one more thing, to make matters a little worse literally as I wrote this post a new pair of purple adidas adios racing flat show up at my door. If that's not a sign from God that I should run Sunday I don't know what is.