63 wrote:
Old guy II
Regarding the sore achilles, be very careful regarding stretching it. I would warm it up a bit by jogging a few minutes very slowly and then stretch it very gently. Using steps and slowly dropping your heel is a good stretch. But do not over stretch it. Stretching is a good preventative measure but not so effective if something is already sore. You might just keep aggravating it by stretching. And then ice as soon as you finish running. Even a little massaging should help. Best of luck.
63, thanks for the advice. I am one of those people who never was much of a stretcher, and my approach seems to have more support from recent research. To the extent that I stretch, it is only post-workout, not pre-workout. I warm up almost every run with 20 minutes of easy rowing on an erg. I have neglected my heel drops for the last year or so and now it looks like I need to resurrect them again. In my late 40s I went through several years of inflamed achilles because I never would take enough time off from running to let them fully heal. I finally cleared that problem up by getting a stress fracture following a half marathon and then going 4 months with zero running. Since then I have not had any achilles problems other than a couple of minor flareups from high intensity activities like sprinting or moving furniture. I know way too much about achilles tendinosis from unfortunate experience. My issue usually is poor execution of the solution, not lack of understanding of the problem.
P.S. After a lot of experimenting with training, reading and talking to coaches, and discussing training with my sons, who were pretty good college distance runners, one of whom has his degree in biochemistry with an emphasis on respiratory physiology, I also firmly believe that threshold effort running provides the best bang for the buck and least injury risk for masters runners.