No Duathlon

Well, with less than 2 weeks until the Oulton Park Duathlon, I have made a decision not to race. I suppose those who voted for the Achilles won’t hold on the poll are correct! However, it’s not that it won’t hold; in fact my running is progressing despite my Achilles not being totally healed (don’tthink it ever will be!). I just don’t want to risk the pounding it would get if I raced a duathlon. Instead, I will run the Honington 10k on 30 Sep. This race will be treated as a ‘tempo’ effort and will not be full race effort. I think it is a safer option because I know that I will murder myself on the bike if I did the duathlon – this may stress my Achilles seeing as that is how the original injury occurred. I really wanted a duathlon ranking but in reality it means nothing. A 42 min 10k will do me fine at Honington.

I continue to do my Achilles rehab. In fact, I have to do the stretching exercises throughout the day. This means that I have to go to the stairs at work and stretch away whilst people stroll by giving me weird looks. I hold on to the banister and pull up to give myself a weighted stretch. The amount of people who reckon I am doing ballet is increasing – so much now that I pre-empt any comments with: “stretching my injured Achilles; move along please.”

Training has been ok really. For me, it is now officially off season, hence I am trying to take it easy. . . er. . . didn’t really happen over the weekend, so a day off today! Recent training:

Thursday and Friday were easy days with just some bike swim sessions

Saturday was 5.5 mile run at average pace of 6:58. This included a couple of tempo efforts of 1 mile at 6:12 pace and half a mile at tempo pace. Did 20 mins spin on the bike to loosen off. The Achilles was a bit sore after this so there was plenty of ice and stretching

Sunday was a reduced club ride of 40 miles. There was only 6 of us and I took my single speed to make things a bit more taxing. I was working reasonably hard in places and the single speed makes for an interesting ride when everyone else has a spread of gears.

Monday was an hour on the bike, finishing at the pool for a quick dip; then a spin back home. After work I ran 9 miles at 3:35 marathon pace. I was tired but the relaxed pace was easy enough to maintain. I got all scientific and took my average HR for the run – 126. This meant that I was nice and aerobic; maybe a nice Ironman run pace?

My plans for next year are taking shape but I will wait for a while before I publish on the blog. With a group of guys racing the Barcelona Challenge IM distance early October, I want to wait and see what the troops do in Spain before I document my plan.