Curses...foiled again.

Friday, December 10, 2010

I made my way to the Metropark in a spirit of optimism. I’d run four days in a row and my achilles had felt pretty good, then taken a day off from running. Now I was thinking I was ready for a 40-minute run. Why not? I’d progressed slowly and sensibly back to this point.

The bridle and hiking trails were completely snow covered and difficult to traverse because of frozen imprints of previous hikers. I don’t really like running on this surface, as it seems to bend and twist my ankles. Instead, I went to the all-purpose, paved trails because the park plows them. They had a covering of snow/ice…they don’t and shouldn’t salt…which I thought would make the surface a little softer and more like the bridle trail when it wasn’t snow covered. I’ve been staying off of pavement for a long time figuring that the hard pounding that represents is no good for any part of my old, decrepit body.

I could feel the achilles with each step, but kept thinking it would go away. Then…without warning at the 18-minute mark…I had an extremely sharp pain in the achilles that radiated up into my calf. I stopped immediately…and cursed out loud. No big deal since there was no one around. I was over two miles from the car and wearing shorts, a short-sleeved t-shirt and socks on my hands. Nothing on my head. It was cold and I was wet and the walk back would take over 30 minutes. I’ve done this before and you would think I would have learned something by now…well…you’d think that if you didn’t know me at all.

I was limping badly and thinking about hypothermia…and being stupid. After 5 minutes of walking, I was shivering and looking stupid as hell. I mean if you’re running dressed as I was, folks would think “he’s a little eccentric” but when you’re just walking through snow in shorts and a t-shirt…well…there’s really no good explanation. I exaggerated the limp when I saw someone coming my way on the trail…kind of saying “I’m not as stupid as I look…just injured”. Ah…what the hell.

I started this funny running thing. Short, choppy steps and trying to land flat-footed on the right and not push off. Awkward…but I was moving faster and starting to warm up. I continued in this fashion all the way back to the car, making it in about 25 minutes after I’d first stopped. Naturally, I rode home completely discouraged. Things have not gone well with my running for about 5 months now. I really am getting ready to give it up for 3-4 weeks and just see if everything will heal. I’m going to contact Nilesh, the sports doc, and find out his spin on what I should do.

I returned home and hopped on the trainer to complete my planned double. The achilles actually hurt while pedaling…and that’s not good. Still, I managed 43 minutes and a good calorie burn…something I really needed since I had a party that night and another tomorrow. I’d be grazing my way through a ton of hollow calories, I was sure. I’ll just continue to play the injury factor the best I can. I’m not giving in…not yet anyway.

Run duration: 33 minutes. Bike duration: 43 minutes
Training Heart Rate: 140 bpm running and 130 bpm biking.
Calories burned during workout: 1,200.