I've said it before and I'll say it again: My Achille's heel is my Achille's heel.
The same one that sidelined me a year ago has never really gotten better. It goes back and forth between 40 and 80%; though sometimes (like last spring) I've gotten a decent block more in the 85-90% range. But never has it been 100% healthy.
For most of the past month I haven't been running very much. Summer training had been going decent, I was adding volume and getting more and more fit, but that unraveled as July turned to August. I got to the point with my Achilles where it began to get worse and worse, to the point that it was no better than a year ago. Most frustrating is that it's been never debilitating, but always uncomfortable. Eventually I'd be limping around after even a light workout or just aching like crazy while driving (when I couldn't move it). The tipping point was a family vacation in Florida: running-wise, my Achille's had felt more limber than it had in a long time; however, when I was barefoot on the beach, I couldn't run. At all. It was locked up and I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I knew that was unhealthy, and when the injury began to affect my non-running life...that's when I'd had enough.
At this point in my running career, I figure I'm either going to try to go all-in on training for a kick-ass marathon, or I'm going to just run for fun. The problem is that my Achilles has increasingly prevented me from training all-in (even this past spring when it was the best, I still struggled to run 7 days a week, which isn't acceptable) but at the same time the constant discomfort has taken all the joy out of running. So I made the call to shut it down until I could run 100% discomfort-free.
That decision was made a little easier by a recent trend I've noticed in the local running community: Races have become less and less competitive. Events that used to have prize money don't anymore; competitions that used to have deep fields are now sparse. The epiphany really hit during the Hyde Park Blast, which used to be my favorite race (locally, regionally, or nationally) but now might as well be just another community fun run since they've gotten rid of the Elite 5k or any kind of elite support in the standard 4-mile distance (which is what they did before establishing the 5k). Why the cycling races can support prizes for all their events but the road race can't, despite growing, is something I don't get. Or don't want to get. But I digress...
Aside from the Thanksgiving Day Race, there just aren't any local road races that I'm motivated to do. Even regional races are few: Minster Oktoberfest 10k, Louisville Triple Crown, and...anything else? There's a sad lack of accessible competitive-minded events.
Hopefully I'll be back to running sooner rather than later, but if that doesn't happen then I'm content as well. In the meantime I've been getting into cycling more seriously and it's actually been a lot of fun (I haven't had any bad crashes yet, though...) and I might even try to dabble in cyclocross. It reminds me a lot of Cross Country, which is how most of us got our introduction to running. Why not try the same with cycling? It also makes me wonder, could a local open or all-comers cross country series be popular? It certainly is for cyclists, so why not for runners?
In the meantime I won't be running very much, but I do hope to post on the blog more than I have recently. I have some history, workout, and tactics posts I want to get out; it's just not anything to do with my personal training.
The same one that sidelined me a year ago has never really gotten better. It goes back and forth between 40 and 80%; though sometimes (like last spring) I've gotten a decent block more in the 85-90% range. But never has it been 100% healthy.
For most of the past month I haven't been running very much. Summer training had been going decent, I was adding volume and getting more and more fit, but that unraveled as July turned to August. I got to the point with my Achilles where it began to get worse and worse, to the point that it was no better than a year ago. Most frustrating is that it's been never debilitating, but always uncomfortable. Eventually I'd be limping around after even a light workout or just aching like crazy while driving (when I couldn't move it). The tipping point was a family vacation in Florida: running-wise, my Achille's had felt more limber than it had in a long time; however, when I was barefoot on the beach, I couldn't run. At all. It was locked up and I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I knew that was unhealthy, and when the injury began to affect my non-running life...that's when I'd had enough.
At this point in my running career, I figure I'm either going to try to go all-in on training for a kick-ass marathon, or I'm going to just run for fun. The problem is that my Achilles has increasingly prevented me from training all-in (even this past spring when it was the best, I still struggled to run 7 days a week, which isn't acceptable) but at the same time the constant discomfort has taken all the joy out of running. So I made the call to shut it down until I could run 100% discomfort-free.
That decision was made a little easier by a recent trend I've noticed in the local running community: Races have become less and less competitive. Events that used to have prize money don't anymore; competitions that used to have deep fields are now sparse. The epiphany really hit during the Hyde Park Blast, which used to be my favorite race (locally, regionally, or nationally) but now might as well be just another community fun run since they've gotten rid of the Elite 5k or any kind of elite support in the standard 4-mile distance (which is what they did before establishing the 5k). Why the cycling races can support prizes for all their events but the road race can't, despite growing, is something I don't get. Or don't want to get. But I digress...
Aside from the Thanksgiving Day Race, there just aren't any local road races that I'm motivated to do. Even regional races are few: Minster Oktoberfest 10k, Louisville Triple Crown, and...anything else? There's a sad lack of accessible competitive-minded events.
Hopefully I'll be back to running sooner rather than later, but if that doesn't happen then I'm content as well. In the meantime I've been getting into cycling more seriously and it's actually been a lot of fun (I haven't had any bad crashes yet, though...) and I might even try to dabble in cyclocross. It reminds me a lot of Cross Country, which is how most of us got our introduction to running. Why not try the same with cycling? It also makes me wonder, could a local open or all-comers cross country series be popular? It certainly is for cyclists, so why not for runners?
In the meantime I won't be running very much, but I do hope to post on the blog more than I have recently. I have some history, workout, and tactics posts I want to get out; it's just not anything to do with my personal training.
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