Injury Update

After my last blog on Thursday night things took a turn for the worse. I went out on Friday morning for an easy jog to see how the Achilles had reacted over night, the jog turned out to be quarter of a mile long. The pain wasn't overly intense but the fact that I could feel it tightening up every foot strike was enough for me to call it a day. I went to see Rich our x-country trainer (physio for those in England) who pointed out that the Achilles creaked every time I flexed it. This he explained was bad, a sign of Achilles tendonitis (or something similar to that it was a bit more technical), and that I shouldn't run on it till this went away completely. Consequently, I was told to take three days off running and to come in for treatment each day.

As painful as it was to take three days off - the most I have taken off since February when I was in Australia, it seems to have worked (fingers crossed!) Basically I have a routine before and after every run which goes like this: Heat up the Achilles with heat pads, ultrasound the area for five minutes, tape the area and then go on a run. Come back stretch everywhere but not the Achilles, use the foam roller, stim machine (seen in the picture at the top, basically the wires attach to two pads which are stuck on the area of injury) for 20 mins with ice, then either put my foot in an ice bucket or go in the ice pool (exactly the same to the one in the video below). This has enabled me to complete a full week of running so far and even do a session of sorts on Tuesday in which I finished with 2 miles of 4'55 or 8k race pace, which is a good sign it is getting better. I will continue to do this for the next week or so leading up to the Willamette race. A full training blog will hopefully go up on Sunday night, and I intend to regularly update my training on this day in the future.