Week 3 - Highs and Lows - Day 21 of 112

Highs and lows

Left my 15 miler till later on in the day. This allowed me to fuel up well before taking to the canal. Scheduled to do a 7.30 split in 1.52 hours, the run started brilliantly with the first 3 miles going through at 7.08 pace. I had to rein in myself as I powered towards the canal. I put down the pace to being well rested and fueled up to the max. Not even the achilles was giving me any pain - in fact it was the best that I felt at the start of a run since I started. Kept clocking up the miles at just under the required pace and really felt great. Good cadence easy breathing and HR 155 bpm. What could go wrong!

And then after 9 miles the wheels came off. It began with a niggle on the right leg - achilles. As the miles clocked down to the 15 the pain became increasingly worrying and the pace started to creep towards 8 minute mile pace. Then the groin on my left started to play up with the resulting loss of speed and to round it off my left hamstring started to tighten up. I am putting the last two down to me trying to compensate for the achilles and changing my gait. The last five miles were between 7.47 and 8.31 - not what I had envisaged at the beginning of the run. By the end it was a miserable shuffle.

So where does that leave me. I have applied ice and ibroprufen and strangely the achilles actually seems ok. Certainly not throbbing and not sore when I walk on it. I wonder if it is the new shoes? The first time that I used  them they left me with a blister and every time since they have rubbed against the achilles. Will need to monitor this and see how I pull up on Monday morning. I have always had to manage the achilles so this is nothing new to me. What I will now have to do is actively manage the situation with ice, ibroprufen and the all important exercises.

What a rollercoaster of a run. Mentally I am in an odd place as I had expected the achilles to be sore leaving me finding it difficult to walk but maybe this will come after a sleep tonight. Maybe the fact that I have been waiting for this to happen and now that it has it just gives me something else to tackle and resolve.

Numbers - 15 miles - 1.53.57 - 7.35 pace - 152 HR bpm - cadence 83.1 rpm - 2081 calories