This morning was my first run back from the Atlantic City Half-Marathon. That was Sunday, and Monday morning I continued to have stiff calves and delicate ankles. Some ibuprofen was my main course of remedy, but by Monday evening I compared my ankles and noticed that my left ankle was considerably swollen. Well, not so much the ankle, but just under the Achilles tendon, just above the ankle. Palpating the tendon didn’t seem to hurt. I first thought this was some kind of capsule inflammation, but a little research suggests to me it’s what was called Achilles tendonitis (“Achilles inflammation”) and now more properly called Achilles tendonopathy (“Achilles degeneration”). (Apparently the shift in verbiage was a result of microscopic investigation of purported inflammation, which ended up being degeneration. I may have my facts a bit off, keep in mind.)
As a result, I was comfortable not running Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday. My work schedule made it hard, but talking to a dancer friend yesterday led me to feel a bit rosier about the condition, maybe even something I should continue running through. Granted, that sounds counterintuitive and quite possibly contraindicated, but it felt good to be out to do 10.25 miles this morning over the Queensboro Bridge and around Central Park, shirtlessly in 52-degree cloudy weather. I felt alive and my ankle was pretty solid throughout the run. Here are the deets:
I thought my Garmin was fried after I was on the subway ride home–it suddenly shut down and started to start up but would keep shutting down and beeping. When I got home, I found out it had run out of battery! I had thought I charged it fully but maybe a contact didn’t happen and the battery drained. It seems to be charging now, and the results transferred fine.
I ran 7:27s but that’s a bit misleading. I had traffic again in Manhattan, though not nearly as badly as some days. That slowed me down to an 8:21 in that area, which is oddly a consistent pace for that trafficky leg. I also did a 7:41 just after that, also because I had to pause for some Central Park morning traffic crossing in front of me. Aside from that, my laps seem pretty solid, and I even sped up at the end of the run. The end of the run was a bit more reliable terrain–no hills, no traffic, no bridges.
I focused a bit on my quads during this run and it seemed to help. I imagined my quads as the most important part to think of during my run. That imaging flew a bit out the window when a faster runner moved effortlessly in front of me; I focused instead on seeing if I could outpace him but it didn’t happen. But overall, the imaging was pretty helpful and even seemed familiar. It made me wonder how my pace would be if I worked more on my quads in this lead-up to the NYC Marathon.
The lower parts of both calves are still a bit sore, but it’s something I think I am okay to deal with. This run came on about 7 hours of sleep. I haven’t been able to get much more than 6 hours a night the last few nights which isn’t ideal. Nor have I iced my inflammation, which also would be good. Hopefully I can stay healthy and just bang out a great marathon very soon!