On the road to recovery?

Over the last few days I've felt a small turnaround in my fitness. I've done a few short runs and on Saturday afternoon undertook a major 7 minute jog. On Sunday and today my ankle/heel weren't complaining so that's a good sign. Yesterday I walked 9km in running shoes and that was all good.

My swimming is positive too, today I even felt speedy! I've been to Doncaster twice and each time coped with just over half an hour and, importantly, my left arm hasn't been unreasonably stiff afterwards. Today I even felt  to have some power and managed 200m in 4:24 minutes which is only 3 seconds off my personal best. On advice I did 2 lengths, well separated, with the paddles and I'll see how my arms/elbows/shoulder react to that. Todays' swim was basically an interval set, after Saturday's cruise around the lake, and I am very pleased to have been teetering around 2:02min/100m for sprint single lengths. Some of those included bilateral breathing as did some paired lengths.

Whilst on holiday I managed to get stiffness in my right shoulder but that actually improves with movement and is aggravated by sitting infant of the computer. Hopefully the physio will be more effective than my use of a tennis ball.

Incidentally, next time I'm at Doncaster I want to try my rather tight HUUB wetsuit as I've noticed quite a bit of flushing in my ALPKIP Silvertip which isn't good news for keeping warm. I wonder if part of its ease of use lies in being a bit large for me?

A hard rest week

Tuesday was a rest day but I was stuck on a train. Yesterday I had a swimming lesson and then circuits - never very much so today I felt like a decent run. I went out on the road for 11km and it felt fine although my legs were a bit stiff. Yesterday's squats had made their mark.

Looking back on my times for the Dore road loop I'm a lot slower than I was 2 years ago. I'd like to recover some of that pace but I'm acutely aware that injury came soon after the spell of best ever paces. I was instructed not to race every run! I'm using the HRM on every run now and it is clear that this run is at or above classic tempo run pace and  as such must be handled carefully.