April 4, 2010

Back Into the Dirt

The tweaked Achilles tendon is still not 100%, but very close. Walking and strength training are completely asymptomatic, but running..... still a little tender, especially on uphills. I'd only been doing short runs on the asphalt path near my home, but today I decided to get back onto the soft dirt trails and see how things went.

Headed out to Hyland, which is close to home and relatively flat. What a perfect day for a trail run! Sunny, little wind, no bugs, and the trails are in excellent condition! You would be hard pressed to even find a damp spot - very unlike Hyland in early April.

I parked at Jan's Place and headed towards the north end of the park, trying to remember what the Trail Mix course was (they have changed some of the trails since I last ran that race a couple years ago). I opted to skip the steep hill near the turn around point in the course as well as the ski hill (still a few patches of snow present) since hills are still bugging my tendon. This short cut would also give me the option of heading back to my car for about a 3 miler if things weren't going well. Thankfully, things were feeling pretty good as long as I didn't press on the uphills, so I did the rest of the loop to the south end of the park. Ended up with about 6 miles, which is more than I've run in what seems like forever - and so far the Achilles is still feeling pretty good :)

Felt great to get out there and play in the dirt again, and I think the softer surface probably helped a bit. Looking forward to seeing my trail running buddies again soon!

4 comments:

Londell said...

Glad it is better. Was a great day. Got a 35 mile bike ride in and wanted to run, but the bike was enough.

Wayne said...

Yay! Glad to hear the achilles is getting better, Kel!

wildknits said...

Glad to hear your run went well!

It is amazing (and probably should be a little scary) how dry the trails already are.

Getting back to softer surfaces - even with the hills - seems to have really made a difference in my heel pain.

Steve said...

Awesome news, Kel! Take it slow and stay healthy. ;)