Accepting Limitations

Last Thursday's run, where I had to limp home nursing a sore achilles tendon, was a bit of a wake up call. It made me realise I'd been pushing too hard to increase my pace and was feeling a bit inadequate in the face of the 450 Parkrunners who seem to just always run faster than me with ease and grace.

I'm forgetting that until 16 weeks ago, I didn't even own a pair of trainers and hadn't done any aerobic (let alone anaerobic) exercise for a very long time. I made good progress at the start and while I knew, and was frequently told, that it wouldn't be linear progress at the same rate forever, I did end up forgetting that there'd probably be a plateau in my performance sooner or later.

So Saturday I chose not to subject myself to the competitiveness of Parkrun and to run gently, keeping in mind that 8min/km is actually OK and looking after my legs is more important than pace. Anytime I felt anything in my achilles, I eased off a little. I've also been doing much more stretching & rolling once home on non-running days as well as run days.

And I feel much better for it, not only is my achilles less painful, but I'm enjoying just getting out there and putting in the miles.

The problem now is that with the rain on Sunday and the general autumnification that's going on, my usual route suddenly got much muddier and puddlier and I know from last year that it's unlikely to dry out again until the spring. So I'm on the look out for easy winter trails that aren't too undulating but also keep off the main roads where the danger is from breathing in too many petrol fumes.

/spreads large map on kitchen table