Rest is Best

Following on from my achilles injury I forced myself to have a week of complete rest. To be honest I could barely walk for the first couple of days so I didn’t really have any choice, but it seemed to pay off. My achilles is still sore if I walk too far on it and I haven’t tried running yet but now, 2 weeks after first hurting it I can at least do some things. I don’t think it was actually torn, or if it is then only slightly. I think it was just aggravated and inflamed. Once the swelling reduced then the pain went and full movement was regained.

Compensation

I think I may have been walking a little strange and compensating though as my left IT Band, glutes and piriformis are now very tight and sore. Plenty of foam rolling is in store this week. There was compensation of another type too. The enforced rest seemed to have me finding some form. Taking, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday off completely gave me some much needed rest. By Friday I could bear it no more so tested things out with some

  • Easy stretching,
  • 30 minutes easy on the turbo trainer,
  • A core workout,
  • A surf ski session.

My achilles was sore afterwards but the main culprit for this seemed to be the walking to and back from the beach with my surf ski. More importantly the turbo trainer seemed fine so I planned a real world ride for Saturday.

Wanting to avoid the traffic but not put too much stress on my achilles with a MTB ride I headed off for a ‘gravel bike’ ride on my CX bike. First climb of the day was one of the longer climbs around here, known as the ‘Leg Burner’s Big Brother‘, it’s a 7 mile, 1500 foot climb on gravelly fire-road. With just a gentle headwind and well rested I seemed to be making good time. In fact by the halfway point, despite not having tried too hard I seemed to be on target for what might even be a PB. I picked up the pace a little and tried harder towards the top. The headwind here didn’t help but by the time I made it to the top I had indeed set a new PB of 42:24. That was over 2 minutes better than my previous best. Compensation indeed for a week of inactivity.

The rest of the ride was good too, with a few more Strava trophies gained!

This rest malarkey can do a world of good at times – only if you’ve done the work beforehand though. Here’s my training diary for the week, with the conspicuous lack of sessions due to injury. I adjusted the plan as soon as I knew I was injured so that there weren’t too many sessions colour-coded red and no temptation to do any sessions.

Recovery Week

Recovery Week

Luckily it was supposed to be a recovery week so I can say I managed to do that and even excelled at it for a change.

Back to It

I’m still not running but have at least managed to do some trainingt his week. Once again I have adjusted the plan to account for the achilles injury. That way can keep my training diary full of green sessions and don’t have run sessions planned that might tempt me out before I’m ready.

Back to it

Back to it

I might try a short run (just 5-10 minutes) next week and then gradually build up from there. Although I’m off to Italy for a biking holiday so I might just wait until I get back from that. Concentrating on biking and swimming for a few weeks and then hopefully pick up the running once things have had time to heal.

I’ve done a couple of open water swim sessions now too and things are warming up nicely – ‘warm’ is of course a relative term.

1 Response

  1. Avatar forComment Author Mum x says:

    I was going to say with the amount of” rest days” I have I should be super fit , but then I read ” only if youve done the work beforehand” and I haven’t ! Well unless 5 mins of shakey wake every morning counts? It does include ten star jumps and running on the spot !
    Glad you are getting better though x

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Alan Cole

Alan is a Freelance Website Designer, Sports & Exercise Science Lab Technician and full time Dad & husband with far too many hobbies: Triathlete, Swimming, Cycling, Running, MTBing, Surfing, Windsurfing, SUPing, Gardening, Photography.... The list goes on.