Mileage - 17 miles
Sunday again, was a recovery day. After yesterday's hard workout I really needed to just switch off and run easy. I got out the door just before 11am as we had gone to church at 9am and I think I needed this extra wake up time to get ready for the run. It let my legs and achilles warm up a little and apart from the dull pain still lingering in my legs, I felt fine. I found a nice 5 mile loop on hard sand so it was good to get off the road and do a couple of loops of this. There is one sharp hill (only about 10m long) and this was enough to send a hot pain through my achilles and nearly stopped me running but as soon as I got to the flat I couldn't feel a thing. After jumping in the pool again to help my legs, we had some lunch and got ready for my next appointment with Dr John Ball.
We got to his office and he dug in again to certain areas that sent lightening bolts through my body and forced my face to screw up into a tight little ball. He first of all try to mobilize my left toe which has a lot of scar tissue on the underside and is maybe the cause of my achilles problem. The toe doesn't bend well and he thought that it has been creating a greater force than it should do with my increased mileage which has flared the achilles up. He also dug around into my hips and glutes to release some tightness which again was very sore. Afterwards I was much looser and I was able to bend my knee a lot more than I was able to when I walked in that afternoon. He doesn't do a lot but what he does is incredibly affective. I have another appointment on Wednesday so I will drive down and back just for this short period of treatment (its a 4.5 hour round trip by car).
After I was finished with my treatment we started to head back up the road but visited with my aunt on the way out of town as she was back at home from having sinus cancer removed from behind her face. I couldn't believe how good she looked and how well she could speak. It is very invasive surgery where there was a possibility of her losing her eye but a lot of the swelling had gone down and her prosthesis fit her well. Talking to her about what she had gone through in the past few months made me realize how little and insignificant a flared up achilles is. As a runner is feels like a huge deal but it is nothing like the life threatening disease that she had just battled. I'm so glad she is ok and happy.
We got back up to Flagstaff at around 7.30pm so I jumped onto the treadmill for 50 mins and switched off while I watched Man Vs Food on the travel channel. Julie had a great dinner ready for me when I got back of a broccoli omelette and potato pancakes. This was a great ending to a nice weekend.
Your blog is so inspiring, I love reading it!
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