A mixed week

This week I've exercised indoors and outdoors, on land and in the water. Generally a good combination. Last Friday I managed the longest run I've done in months, it was a massive 15minutes of slow running with 15 minutes of woodland walk. My foot wasn't especially sore over the weekend, just a bit stiff, so I'll take that as a success.

Swims have varied between short sprints in the pool and an open water mile. Once again this is a step up after injury niggles as it's ages since I've done 1600m as a single swim. I can' claim this was a single 'set' though as I had to stop a few times on my second lap of the lake. I think I set off too fast (my watch reckoned 2:12min/100m) and thus it didn't count as steady pace.

Whilst my Sunday runs have been off limits I've used the tim to walk briskly in the woods. Today I saw the controls for the Round Sheffield Run and used that as a prompt to detour via Wigley Farm. The ascent from the Limb Valley path is very picturesque, the latter half not so much fun with long grass (ticks?) and cattle with calves (dangerous?). I'm hoping these walks are keeping some degree of long-run aerobic fitness.

Return to running?

It's nearly 4 weeks since I was advised to stop running for a few days.

"...until it doesn't hurt when hopping."

Well that was this morning and so I decided to risk doing a jog/walk to circuits. It felt stiff on the journey and weak during the exercises but didn't cause a problem. I set off to walk home, when I was a bit aware of the tendon, but ended up being driven home for most of the journey.

Fast & slow

The last 10 to 14 days have been mixed. I've struggled to be enthused to swim after work as every day has felt too long and too stressful. So I arrived at last Sunday under-exercised and felt energetic on my usual run from Whirlow to Oxstones.

I reached Oxstones in a 2nd fastest time and after a very brief pause pushed on along Houndkirk Road. At my turn I was please to have reached it in under 45 minutes - often it's closer to 48minutes. Turning around I noted that the wind still wasn't in my face. Often if I do a good pace along the byway I discover that I've been wind-assisted and then have resistance in the other direction. I kept up the effort back to the car park and achieved a PB of under 1 hour 20 minutes.

Everything wasn't good though as in the afternoon a develop marked pain in my left heel very close to the symptoms described online for achilles tendonosis. To be fair, the issue has been bubbling under for a few weeks. I blame it on running to a meeting I was late for in my Vivobarefoot boots. Luckily on Monday I had a physio appointment. Indeed my putative diagnosis was correct and I was advised off running for a few days at least. It's likely that a fast run on a background of too little training was just too much. I feel it is improving now but not sure I should run tomorrow.

Meanwhile my swimming has got slower and slower. Unlike running, where I can achieve a good outcome after a 'rest', swimming ability seems to ebb away day by day. Today's 'spike set' was incredibly slow and my pace dropped off markedly across a mere 1133m. I was making a distinct effort to take the rest sets genuinely slowly and gently but even when trying to be faster I didn't achieve much pace. At least I did make the effort so perhaps I've been able to halt the swimming decline?