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\u00a0don’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.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>‘, 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\u00a0didn’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.<\/p>\n The rest of the ride was good too, with a few more Strava trophies gained!
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