I didn't know what to expect, but after a week of rehab work on my tender Achilles tendon I headed out to the soft English Landing trail for what I hoped would be a full 15-mile workout.
I would have been happy with a 2-hour workout.
I put a heal cup into my left shoe, slathered Biofreeze on my tendon and calf muscle, and then wrapped the tendon and part way up the calf. I started slowly and gradually worked my way toward a 10-min. mile pace. At first I walked for 30 seconds every couple of miles, and at the halfway point I stopped my watch and spent some time stretching. The second half of the run I walked every mile for 30 seconds. I discovered that if I increased my pace to close to 9 min., my tendon actually was a bit less uncomfortable, so I tried to maintain something in the neighborhood of 9 to 9:30.
The discomfort reached a certain level after about 5 miles, but never got any worse the rest of the way. It got to the point where I kind of trusted that nothing real bad would happen and I tried to concentrate on maintaining a good form so I wouldn't injure something else. The easy pace kept me feeling fresh all the way.
So, I made it to 15 miles, averaging 9:45 for the whole run. The week was 21 miles, about 10 miles below the schedule, but good enough to avoid losing conditioning. I expect another week of about the same mileage. Maybe by this time next week I'll have healed.
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