On what I was hoping would be the eve of my return to running, I felt the need to check in with the school’s athletic trainers and see what their thoughts were on the recovery of my achilles. Just the fac that I felt it would be a good idea to stop in and see the trainers was a pretty good sign to me that tomorrow would likely not be the day tht I resumed running.

Yes, my achilles had been feeling wonderfully between the last pair of Tuesdays. Certainly a lot of that is becuase I hadn’t done anything that would really count as working out on account of giving the new tattoo time to heal. Upon resuming my newfound regimen of ellipitcal and stationary bike, thought no pain or real soreness has occurred over the last three days, my achilles has been feeling unstable. It’s an odd feeling, but one that is worrysome, unsettling and, quite obviously, caused me some concern.

I actually received audience from the head trainer on what was a very slow Friday afternoon, and his prognosis was that there’s still a little bit of swelling on the achilles, which is most likely what’s causing the feeling of instability. It’s nothign major, he assured me, and the fact that there’s no discoloration is certainly a positive. But, as was my thinking he agrees that it’s a wise idea to give it a bit more rest before resuming running, though the continuation of cross-training is a good thing.

Instead of trying to run again tomorrow I will be re-evaluating next Friday to see where I’m at. In the meantime I will continue to corss-train and have been encouraged to do the follwoing:

-Continue calf raises and other leg strengthening exercises to build up the muscles around the achilles, which are a large source of the problem.
-Resistance band exercises with the band looped around my foot and working on range of motion to target the lower calf muscles.
-Balance exercises to work on the stability (3x30 seconds a few times a day).

Whie the news was certainly not music to my ears, I am pretty happy that I A) actually got myself in to talk to the trainer, B) was able to talk to the head trainer on a slow day so as to have his full attention for a few moments.

This obviously sucks, and a large part of that is because I really was starting to get excited to try out running tomorrow, even if it was on the treadmill. I’ll certainly do something tomorrow, though with considerably less than joy than I would have for running. Maybe another 3-hour cross-training session is in store so that I can consider a mental conditioning day as well.