March started well with a trip to Cornwall and Devon with 8 friends to run the 100 mile Camel Teign route (this year’s LDWA 100 miler From Bodmin to the mouth of the river Teign in Devon) over 3 days. It was a great run and we had 2 good days, though it was pretty windy going over Dartmoor. Following a lot of rain some sections were very boggy and I managed to tweak my Achilles heel jumping over a waterlogged field on day 2. I iced it that night but it was too sore for me to run more than about 10 miles the third day and I was on the early train home (though not before having run a decent amount on it to make it really hurt!!)
Sometimes it was clear when we were on the right path… sometimes not so clear!
Then a 10 day trip to Lanzarote with the running/Tri club. I could barely run so decided not to risk it and take advantage of the great cycling round the island. I swam a lot (at least once a day in the gorgeous 50m outside pool) and have kept this up a few times a week back home. If I was in London injured I’d have been pretty fed up but in the sunshine of Lanzarote I was able to cross train and enjoy the change.
If you have to recover from a dodgy Achilles La Santa is the best place!
I was still in a lot of pain when I got back, saw a physio and was told to stay off it for the foreseeable (though it turns out I have some myopia…!) With the London Marathon coming up I decided to test it out at the National Road Relays and ran a pb 5k with no pain, which was a great feeling after nearly 6 weeks off! So I picked up my VLM number and ran a decent marathon, mainly off my endurance base – my pacing was pretty rubbish though. Still slightly surprised with only being 1 min over my pb; which has made me start to think I might train for next year’s London Marathon and see what I can do.
