Week 5 - In which injury strikes!

Miles so far this week: 6.4
TOTAL MILES: 126

Tuesday 1^st Feb – Interval day! (1mile warmup, 3x 2km at 7m30 pace, 1 mile warmdown)

Show me the map!

So back we come to interval day.  Strangely, my previous disaffection for interval day has become lukewarm of late, since I can actually feel myself getting fitter.  (Actually, that’s not true.  I can’t feel myself getting fitter; no Popeye am I.  I can, however, notice over the weeks that I am finding the pain threshold appearing further (or at faster running pace) than it did before.  So maybe I can’t actually feel my muscles and stamina growing, but certainly I can see the benefits.  And I should have just said that to begin with, but what the hell, parentheses are the rambler’s best friend.)

At any rate, I went into this run having experienced a lot of pain in my left calf and Achilles after Sunday’s efforts.  This is an unusual position for me to be in, as I am usually pain-free.  I’ve not really suffered from injuries, recurring or otherwise, over the years, and felt a bit unfortunate to be feeling it now, since I’m training for what is (at least up to now) the race of my life.

Anyway, despite these misgivings, I went out with my standard positive attitude and got the run done.  I was under the times given by the schedule, again, which is all I ask, but it did come at a price.  At the point I stopped running, I was immediately in pain and unable to do much more than limp.

I crawled into bed that night thinking a good night’s sleep would put the world to rights.

Miles so far this week: 6.9
TOTAL MILES: 126.5

Wednesday 2^nd Feb – 9 miles in approx. 9m45 pace

Not much really to say about this one.  I was still experiencing pain, but decided to get out and see what it felt like anyway.  The answer, inevitably, was that it felt like someone repeatedly stabbing my leg with a knife whilst forcing me to run.  As a torture device, it works.  As a training device, it fails in its remit.

Half a mile after starting the run, I was back at the house.  The rest of the week was written off; the leg needed more time to heal and coming back early would have served no purpose other than delay the healing.

After the joy of last week, this was a bit of a comedown.  I’m keeping the spirits up, though.  No one goes through 3 months of training with no injury worries.  I’m keeping the fingers crossed that they are nothing more than strains.