After a few days of rest I went running again on Sunday. My achilles felt good for the first half of the run, but after 10 km I noticed it was getting sore (especially on the hills) so I stopped running and took the bus home.

It was sore for two days after and I haven’t been running since. On Thursday I went to see a physiotherapist. The good news I don’t have achilles tendinitis and should be able to run the marathon. The bad news is I’m still injured. I have a strained calf muscle where it meets the achilles.

The recovery path includes lots of stretching, strengthening, and slowly adding back running. I have three exercises to stretch and strengthen my calves, hamstrings, and hips – calf raises on the stairs with bent and straight knees, a dynamic stretch against the wall for my hamstring, and side stepping with a resistance band around my ankles to strengthen my hip muscles. Next week I’m going to add running back in, starting at 5 km, mixing 5 minutes of running with 1 minute of walking, and working up from there until I catch up to the Running Room run clinic (they’re up to 20 km on Sundays now). I’m also going to add strength training at the gym and runners yoga into my schedule.

5 week downs, 12 more until race day. Last weeks results are here.