I’m an idiot. I realise that some people will think they know that already, but last week it was definitely true.
Having had a little wobble 10 days ago worrying that I’d done something to my hamstring, I went out running again as soon as it felt better. That day I ran 4k before stopping when I began to feel something. Which was probably fine. It felt okay. Although later on I felt a bit of a ache in my achilles. This is the point at which I should have obeyed the golden rule – always listen to your body. But of course I didn’t do that did it did I.
No, what I did was order myself some hot/cold sports compresses from eBay and the first day after they arrived I couldn’t wait to try them out. This of course would involve a run, even though my achilles was still aching from the run 3 days before. What I now see also didn’t help was I went out after work the night before and spent 6 hours in barefoot sandals. This in itself wouldn’t have been a problem, as I my achilles wasn’t right in the first place, wearing zero drop shoes and standing up for 6 hours the day before was just putting more strain on it.
Anyway, the next day I went running and tried to do a complete circuit of the Common (5.6k). Even though my achillies was starting to give me some concern, I just carried on and ignored it, thinking I could run through it. Besides, I had my sports compress waiting at home from me in the freezer – what an earth could go wrong? A big mistake.
Before even completing this circuit I had to stop to cross a road. When I tried to start up again on the other side, my body told me in no uncertain terms that I’d been a silly boy. There was no way I could run anymore, and even the 1k walk home was a struggle. My achilles was really hurting.
It’s amazing how you can choose to ignore a developing injury and your body will let you carry on – to a certain degree anyway.
So it’s now 4 days later and I’m still having problems walking. It’s getting better every day and I estimate in another 2 days that I’ll be walking again just fine. But running? I’m going to leave it a full 2 weeks from being able to walk without a hobble before I start back running. And I’m going to start off at a small distance again and not think I can simply jump back up to the distance I’d worked up to. I’ll probably start this off with 100-Up exercise. Never heard of this? Well see Chris McDougall’s explanation in the video that I’ll post right after this post.