Day 37/stretch

Yesterday, no running, just walking. My Achilles started hurting Monday evening.

This has happened before. If I do certain exercises and don't stretch enough afterward, certain muscles tighten up, get knots, etc, and this puts pressure on my Achilles. I feel it in on the right side presumably for the same skeletal/physiological reasons that most of my injuries are on the right side (doesn't help that the incision for my operation AND my cyst ruptures have been on that side too. LOL) I'm not symmetrical, I have slight scoliosis, my hips are slightly tilted.

It didn't help that I did resistance exercises on Monday, the day after my long run, when muscle recovery was presumably in full swing. Not a wise move. This was somewhat of an experiment: I always do resistance exercises right after tough runs, or at least not on 'easy' days so that they truly remain easy. Next time I'll just skip the resistance exercises instead of squeezing them into an easy day.

Anyway, I couldn't do much at first, but gradually I was able to stretch out this and that (most importantly, hamstrings and calves and top of feet), culminating in a full West stretch for 7-8 minutes last night. This got most of the kinks out.

I decided to run today. The soreness had gone down and I felt I really needed to get more blood circulating around the area. Ligaments and tendons have poor blood supply. An easy jog seemed reasonable.

But I learned something: my easy jog seems to be over-reliant on my Achilles. It made more sense to use a slightly higher quad lift, which made other changes including speed. I got faster and it felt good.

I wasn't going to run home to the barn, but it happened anyway. My legs kept going, I kept a good lift, and it felt good, apart from my sluggish muscles. They're still sort of cranky, but I've decided that they are going to be cranky as they gradually reawaken no matter what, and if I get used to the struggle now, I can do it later when I'm actually moving fast(er) and coping with lactic acid. My muscles aren't injured, just unused, I guess, so pushing them has got to happen. My breathing was fine. I had one heart flip on the way back, which was uncomfortable--I've never ever gotten one while I was running before (I'd swallowed at an inopportune time, I guess, and the pressure set it off) but it was just the trigger. no tachycardia anymore!

So, I ran out in 20 min (2 miles) and back in 17.5. Not too shabby! I jogged to 45 minutes. This particular workout is making sense to my body so I'll probably keep it the same next week and perhaps the week after. The run back wasn't quite tempo effort, but maybe it'll gradually become so, which will be good. Last week I ran close to 30 miles so I'll probably stay at that mileage for at least another couple of weeks.

Actually, I've been trying to convince myself not to fuss about mileage! I'm trying to keep to tracking minutes instead of miles.