Remember my last post where I obsessed obsessively about training and plans and getting ready and being prepared? Well thanks so much for your suggestions, contributions and calming words – this helped a great deal. I forget sometimes that I do have a big engine lurking ready to break out and that everything will come together when it is supposed to.

So today I ran. It was a great run – snowy with crazy blowing snow but it wasn’t cold. I ran for a little over an hour at a nice easy pace. I felt like I could run forever. I felt awesome. Well, I mostly felt awesome…

You see I’ve been having some tightness and stiffness around my heel and achilles on my right foot. Mostly in the morning my ankle/heel/achilles feels tight. Nothing major. But on Tuesday I started to feel it towards the end of the group run. Wednesday it was okay for my lunchtime run. Thursday not bad. Friday okayish. But my left achilles started to feel tender on Friday and my right was tight all day.

I applied some kin tape to my right achilles/lower calf and liberally applied Voltaren to my left achilles. This morning everything felt okay. By the end of my run, the little “niggles” of pain had become constant. I iced. I stretched. I foam rolled. I had a hot bath. I self-massaged.

I discovered that when my feet are in flexion, the achilles are quite tender and sore… Sigh. Looks like some kind of running injury. But not a bad one – in my opinion. So I’m putting the brakes on my running for a week or so. This was a  hard decision to make because I feel like I’m coming into some fitness and I’m starting to really enjoy the running. But I know that if I don’t let these little pains heal now, I won’t be doing what I want when the trails are free from snow.

I’m off to NYC on Monday for a few days of vacation and I had planned to bring my running gear with me and run each day in Central Park. I’ve decided not to bring my running gear. It is tempting. But I’ve had enough experience now with ignoring “niggles” and having them turn into something much worse. I want to be running in April and really preparing for the Ultimate XC so if I have to take week or more off now from running – so be it.

(Next week, you can expect photos and words from my NYC discoveries…. I’ll try to smile in my selfies!)