Trials and tribulations

Started off the week with focus on trying to reduce the inflammation in the achilles.

Wednesday
Headed down to the weir and back on a tempo style run. Noticed that at points the LH ITB complained and still a little noise from the RH achilles as well. Made a booking for Friday morning with the witch doctor to look at the wheel alignment. In the interim I did some self diagnosis, last week I put in a heel lift on the rh shoe to try and shorten the stretch on the rh achilles which I believe then lengthened the stretch on the lh ITB. Anyway, the lift is back out!

Stats
Distance 10.85km
Time 50:02
Avg pace 4:36
Avg HR 172

Thursday
An early start and then hectic day at work but I took my gear in to attempt a session. As it happened the opportunity presented itself between work and the Striders committee meeting and I popped down to the gym with plans for a hard 500m interval rep session on the treadmill. As soon as I started striding out the ITB twinged badly. I tried to persevere but it was not improving so I hit the stop button and trudged back to get changed :(

Friday
An early morning session with the witch doctor, after I explained my woes he went to work with the needles and left me to "relax" as they did their job. After that he suggested injecting a natural anti-inflam solution (Traumeel) as the sheath around the tendon was inflamed (but not the tendon itself!). The heel felt a little wierd through the rest of the day.

Saturday
The rain cleared at the right time as I headed to Smiffo for the West Met XC race. The course was 2 laps (4km each) with a couple of loops around the ovals/parks and bike tracks near where SMC is based. Was concerned with the warmup as the ITB again niggled but opted to race and see what happened. As usual out a little too fast with 3:50 firstkm but then tucked in about 20m behind Graham S where I stayed for most of the race, just drifting in the last km or so. A couple of Hills Aths guys picked me off in the last km but I managed to hold them within reach to the finish. Afterwards one of them mentioned to me that I run with quite a high elbow action on the rhs which was interesting! ITB was fine during the run but tightened up a little as I cooled down

Stats
Distance 8.07km (which I reckon is about right)
Time 33:54
Avg pace 4:11
Avg HR 180