I mentioned in my race report that at the end of the race my Achilles tendon was bothering me, which I thought was odd because it had never bothered me at all during training. Turns out it continued to bother me and I have been unable to run pretty much since the marathon. I tried a spinning class, but that still bothered it, so I was reduced to the elliptical. The only redeeming thing about the elliptical is that the sound on the built in tv's at the gym actually works, so I don't have to lip read like I do on the treadmill. Still, I was not thrilled being a hamster on a wheel, and I started slacking off. Then I came down with some nasty strep-like virus that put me on the couch for 5 days. I *finally* got out today, on what the radio keeps saying is literally the last good day of the year. I loaded my youngest into the jogging stroller and managed to get in 4.6 miles AND a shower before I had to go get his big brother from preschool.
The run went well, but towards the end, I was definitely aware of the Achilles. It was nowhere near pain, but I was aware of it. Does that make sense? I'm kind of unsure of what I should do in this situation. I'm dying to get back to running, it's been really hard not being able to run the past few weeks, but I obviously don't want to do anything to make things worse. I may just keep the runs to 5 miles for a while and back off if the Achilles acts up again. Clearly, it's gotten MUCH better, I just wish I knew how long it would take to heal up, or what exactly I should do. Grrr... silly body!
But given that I felt fine for the first 3 miles, I think I'm definitely clear to do the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving with Oliver, who is *REALLY* excited about doing another 5k. Given how fast he finished the last one, I think I'm going to try to get him to run even more this time, and see if we can finish in closer to 33 minutes. I don't think he understands that he's going to have to get A LOT faster if he wants to win his age group, but at this point, I just want to get him out there.
