5/3/15 to 5/9/15: Liam McGuire's Almost 5 Miler + Achilles Injury

Last week ended with an injury, and this week started with racing through said injury...Fortunately, both Elizabeth and I were relatively responsible at Fanning's wedding the night before the race, so we were both tired, but at least we weren't hungover.

Unfortunately, my right Achilles remained and still remains bunk.  The morning of the race, I did foam rolling, used KT tape, and still felt bunk.  I went out for the warm up with Terry and Jon, but I was heavily favoring the uninjured side and I had to stop 2 miles in and walk back to the car for more stretching.  On top of the fact that the injury was painful, I also had a visible popping going on that I could actually see whenever I had my foot in a dorsiflexed position.  I was contemplating a DNS all morning, but I spoke with Kevin pre race and liked his idea - run the first mile and then drop out of it's no good.

Once the gun went off, my legs felt pretty dang good from the previous two days off, but the Achilles certainly hurt.  After a quarter mile, it hurt a bit more.  After a half a mile, it hurt even more, and I was very close to dropping out.  But I stuck tot he plan.  Wise or not, that's what I did - and the adrenaline must have kicked in by the end of that first mile.  From then on I only noticed a very mild pinching in the Achilles, but it wasn't affecting my stride.

It wasn't until about the start of the third mile that I was re-focused on the race.  I had gone out surprisingly quick, but I didn't feel the affect and I was feeling cautiously strong.  The only thing I really recall from the race was making a very hard push to catch the guy in front of me during the 4th mile.  I was running solo and into the wind at that point, and it took a lot out of me.  In retrospect, I should have waited until the turn inland, but my in race thought process was that it would be easier to coast along side him after fighting against the wind to catch him.  I was wrong though, I was pretty cooked.  I should have stayed steady and made my push from a ~mile out without having to fight the headwind...anyways...I wasn't able to recover at the still-quick-pace, and he started to pull away again.  I recognized the guy behind me as a Pub Series runner, and I focused on holding position and finished 7th.

Splits:
5:30.21
5:34.17
5:44.29
5:40.39
5:15.55

Data:

3-May		Liam McGuire Almost 5m				7.28		Almost didn't run today, but glad I toughed it out for 7th place.  Pub Series is worth it!
4-May		Easy/Rest				4.06		AM: Easy 4m, but right achilles was really sore. PM: Just not worth it.
5-May		Injury - Rest				0		Took today off completely, really frustrated.
6-May		Rest/Easy				6		AM: Not quite there yet. PM: 6m commute home slow and sore, but not brutal.
7-May		Easy/Rest				2.4		AM: 2.4m then hopped on the bus.  I was limping and really really hurting. PM:
8-May		Injury - Rest				0		Achilles bunk.
9-May		Injury - Rest				0		Achilles bunkish.

That Thursday morning run was really depressing...

Total: 19.74