I had another running dream the other night. In this one I was at mile 20 of a marathon with 2:58 on the clock, and I thought I could still make it under 3 hours. “It’s just a 10K,” I told myself. “I can do it.” Again, I don’t know what happened as I either woke up or forgot or just kept running to a never-nearing finish.
My achilles/ankle is really starting to worry me. I was hoping this week I could start ramping up the mileage a little bit so that next week I could hit the ground running, so to speak, when the marathon training starts in earnest. But my achilles started hurting about a week ago, and now it feels like I have a sprained ankle as my whole ankle is sore. I still run of course.
Yesterday for instance, I did six or so miles real easy, except for two in the middle at Tempo pace. It was lovely to run hard for 12 minutes and 49 seconds, even though I was hurting more than I should have the last quarter mile or so. I got one of those cramps up in the sternum that feels like a hot knife in your flesh. Yeah, one of those. Anyway, everyone keeps saying “18 weeks is a long time”, but every day I’m more and more worried about my fitness level come training time, and come December 9.
Don’t mess around with you achilles. No running for a couple of weeks is better than 5 plus months of achillles problems.
You really ought to see Pieter Kroon. Well worth the investment as it may be a nerve, and maybe only an adjustment. He just helped me out of what I thought was a serious injury but was really just an aggravated nerve.
If it’s really hurting, you should back off and let it heal so you can run and train at 100%. If it’s not, then get out there. You have to listen to your body. That’s the test. If you can’t give it your all, then maybe it is telling you to take a breather. And yeah, that Pieter is a miracle worker. If you can get him to take a look at you he may just be able to fix it immediately.
go read about achilles tendinosis… bottom line is that it will get better if you don’t tear it anymore…..(simple, huh!) what is pulling it is your tight calves! I can’t stress enough about rolling them everyday, twice a day at least!!! I had this and it’s not fun, but stretching after your runs, starting off slowly when you do run, and rolling them will solve the problem, eventually.
Be careful of running up and DOWN hills. Pay attention to make sure you are not heal striking when runnning downhill. If you are your calf will be completely flexed and the achilles will take the full brunt of the force….causing more tearage…
Also you might want to try some weight training. Calve presses with light weight will help stretch and strenghten your calves. This helped me tremendously. It sounds counter intuitive but it really works. Just make sure your calves are warmed up before you do this.
Don’t take my word for it, go do some research.