And the latest injury is…

There’s always something isn’t there. The latest injury is barely an injury at all, but it’s still preventing me from doing much training.

Coming Back from an Achilles Injury

I hadn’t been able to run for a couple of month thanks to an achilles injury. Rest was the name of the game for my achilles for a while. I didn’t run at all for 8 weeks and then my first run back was literally a 3 minute jog. This was followed by a 5 minute jog and then another 10 minute jog a few days before the Dearne Valley Quadrathlon. Having managed 10 minutes without any pain I thought I’d be OK to risk a 5km run at the end of a Quadrathlon. Even so, despite the fact that it was a race I still started the run fairly conservatively just to see how things felt at a faster pace.

I’m pleased to report that my achilles held up. It was a little sore after the drive home from Dearne Valley but that’s to be expected following the first hard run on it for over 8 weeks. It seemed as though my achilles issues were behind me and I’d be able to start running again

Motivated to Improve

I was feeling good after the race at Dearne Valley. The run section of the quadrathlon hadn’t been too slow considering the lack of training. Hopefully I hadn’t lost too much run fitness during the 8 weeks off. The race win had me quite motivated too. My swim time was good, I was stoked with my kayak time and I’d felt good on the bike. I was raring to go and felt I could still make improvements for the rest of the season.

Running: Having not run for a while there were obviously gains to be made there.

Kayaking: I’m still fairly new to kayaking so although the easy initial gains are probably behind me I’m sure I can still improve at that.

Biking: I’ve got a few bike races coming up too so there’s always room for improvement there. The races may not be very specific to Quadrathlon but time on the bike is time on the bike and it’s all good.

It is however pretty much impossible to train for and improve at all four sports at the same time.

Swimming: Luckily, my swimming seems to remain pretty much the same however much, or however little swim training I actually do. I can therefore afford not to worry too much about my swimming, especially as it is the shortest of the disciplines anyway. To be honest I haven’t done any swim ‘training’ for years. I do swim in the sea a couple of days a week before work (when it’s warm enough). That’s more for fun, to ‘lift the soul’ and for the pure joy of early morning sea swims than it is training. I can’t remember the last time I was in the pool.

The Latest Injury is…

Unfortunately motivation has been scuppered but yet another injury. As I said in the intro, it’s barely an injury at all, but I managed to cut my foot during transition in the Dearne Valley Quadrathlon. I do vaguely remember feeling something as I emerged from the swim but managed to ignore it throughout the race. It didn’t hurt at all during the bike, kayak or run but was a little sore afterwards. Since then it has been getting worse and I’ve been limping around due to the pain.

I’m not sure what I cut it on, maybe a piece of glass or a fishing hook. A fishing hook is quite likely as I was warned about them the day before. The cut itself is quite small, but now that it has been thoroughly cleaned I can see that it is very deep and it looks as though a big chunk of flesh has been ripped out from inside my foot – possibly pulled out through the small cut by the barb on a fishing hook. Nice! I guess it’s just the price you have to pay for a race win.

Walking on it is very sore and there’s no chance I could run. Cycling shoes (or any shoes for that matter) aren’t particularly comfortable either so my training diary this week is full of red-flagged missed sessions.

Red Flagged Sessions

Surf Skiing is OK, as is swimming, but thanks to Storm Hector this week there have been a couple of days where it has been too rough for such activities.

Healing and Prevention

Getting it to heal is difficult too. Walking on it doesn’t help with the healing process, but I have to walk around at least a bit. I have managed to resist mowing the lawn though. Storm Hector didn’t help here either. When I got home from work yesterday there was plenty of wind leftover from Hector but the sun was shining. How could I resist a windsurf session with conditions like that? Pushing my wheelbarrow full of windsurf kit to the beach was sore. Carrying my kit over the pebbles and down the beach into the wind tore at the cut. Shoving my feet into the footstraps whilst sailing hurt and landing from jumps was painful. By the end of it things were pretty sore. The saltwater had cleaned it out nicely again though. I knew a windsurf session wouldn’t help but sometimes these things just have to be done.

There’s always something and at least this is just a cut rather an acute injury. So, as long as I keep it clean and the wound doesn’t get infected it should heal up soon. I always get some sort of cut or blistering on my feet from a race. If I don’t stand on something whilst barefoot, I’ll have some sort of minor injury from wearing cycling and running shoes without socks. Maybe I should invest in some ‘barefeet protection pads’ for races. They look kind of funky too! I’d have to get colour to match my nail varnish on the day of course and I don’t know how much of a pain they be whilst transitioning to bike shoes or run shoes, but they could be worth a try.

Tags: Injury