Outdoor Week 1/20/13: Nipping a Tweak in the Bud

Monday I felt a tweak in my right achillies tendon (which I posted about), so my goal this week was active recovery. As a longtime trail runner, I've had many small aches and pains, and a few bigger injuries as well. Active people who enjoy exercise nearly every day really don't like to be injured, and sometimes don't want to admit to themselves that something is wrong. The problem with denial is that if you ignore warning signals, which the body often provides in the form of small pains and other signs, you can miss the opportunity to heal before something is injured worse.

Normally you can look to my 2013 Activity Log for daily activity, but I will post some of this week's detail here because it was all about getting healthy again:

Mon:   2:17 run-hike with some running, I felt a sharp pain in my right achillies tendon
Tues:   easy walk only, 40 minutes on pavement, (no sharp pain, but tight)
Wed:    easy walk only, 40 minutes on snowy/icy trail, (no sharp pain, better)
Thur:   1:53 easy hike only, normal rugged snow covered trail, 500 feet of climb/descent (only felt something in the achillies once, just a slight sign at the beginning, but fine after warmed up)
Fri:      1:26 run-hike, 500 feet climb, hiked up ran down, no signal from achillies
Sat:      2:55 run-hike 1000 feet climb, with an hour of very hard running, getting the heart rate up over 90% of maximum for sustained periods. Everything felt good.
Sun:     1:40 hike only, 500' climb, take it easy after a hard day

Saturday I probably pushed harder than I should have, but I was feeling good and bursting with energy, probably from holding back earlier in the week to try to fully heal my achillies tendon tweak. I don't know if I will have any more problems with that same area. This week I tried to listen to the signals to give things a chance to heal, and so far so good. Really though, just like life, you have to read signals of all kinds and adjust things appropriately with the goal of being healthy heading in the direction you want to go.

Only a few pictures this week... (click to enlarge)