Mon 29 Nov          
pm  19 miles.  After racing at Liverpool on Saturday, I only ran 12 miles yesterday so took advantage of day off work and did a proper long run today.

Tue 30 Nov
pm  7 miles.  Working in Chorley today, lots of snow overnight.  Ran on the canal towards Blackburn!                      
                        

Wed 1 Dec 
am  6 miles.  Wading through knee deep snow, very slow going at times.

pm  10 miles including session in tunnels near the airport: 16x50secs (45secs).   Used these tunnels for speedwork last winter during the snow, they are a godsend.  James Bailey did the first ten with me, then I added on.

Thu 2 Dec   
pm  12 miles.  Snow now compacted amd roads pretty treacherous.  Ran from East Cheshire Harriers with a group there.
                        

Fri 3 Dec     
am  7 miles   
pm  5 miles.  Was able to use the main roads on both runs.                      
                        

Sat 4 Dec    
am  3 miles pre-race loosener.    
pm  11 miles including Manchester League Cross Country.  4^th place behind Lancashire, Jones and Proctor.  See race report.   Felt like death all evening, went to a Christmas dinner and was asked if I should be there as I looked awful.  Early night.

Sun 5 Dec   
pm  21 miles.  Ran after work.  Strangely felt great after last night, really picked pace up last three miles.  Wish more of my long runs were like this.  Used main roads and had few problems with surface.

Weekly Mileage: 101

Mon 6 Dec 
pm  12 miles including road session: 4 x 1 mile (2mins).  Was supposed to be flying to Portugal at 7am but again, the flight didn’t happen!!  Between 6am and 1pm, I was sat in the departures lounge awaiting our gate number, when they finally decided to cancel our flight, due to fog.  Came home, slept til 6pm and then went down to the group session.  We relocated the session due to the ice, using the roads surrounding Southern Cemetary.  Temperature was below zero, very cold.  A reduced warm up due to traffic.  Session with Barnes, Lancashire, Rimmer, Brooks, Bailey.  All together on first rep (4:59), managed to scrape them all under 5:00 despite the conditions.  Lost a few seconds on reps 2 and 3.  Lancashire was the only other one to do all 4. Right achilles got progressively sore in evening after getting home, 5mins after a hot bath it was ice cold to touch so the weather must have caused it.

Tue 7 Dec   
am  9 miles  
pm  7 miles.  Finally arrived in Portugal late morning.  Right achilles incredibly sore on both runs. 

Wed 8 Dec 
am  9 miles  
pm  7 miles.  A mile into the first run, achilles was still sore.  Last winter, I found that a lot of the pain in my achilles worsened because it was irritated and the shoe was rubbing against it and exacerbating it.  So a mile in, with the beach alongside me, and the shoes came off and I did my first ever barefoot run!  7 miles in total on the beach, then a mile back home and it was so much better.  Could still feel it on evening run (back in shoes now) but nowhere near as bad as yesterday. 

Thu 9 Dec   
am  14 miles.  Ran down to the course, it’s looking good!   Achilles really bad after 2 miles and thought Id have to turn back, then it eased.  Bit sore afterwards so decided to skip planned evening run.
             

Fri 10 Dec   
pm  9 miles including track session: 8x800m.  Again, binned off second run and just left today as a single day.  Was a bit sore doing my strides but the reps themselves werent really a problem.  Averaging 2:18/2:19 with last three reps 2:18, 2:18, 2:17.  Andy did the first five reps with me before stepping off with his own achilles injury. 

Sat 11 Dec  
am  21 miles.  As with Thursday, sore after 2 miles, then eased.  Fine until I got 2 miles from home then it got pretty bad.  By the end of the evening it had swelled like a balloon and I couldn’t walk on it.  I was able to train on this injury last winter in conjunction with rehab exercises but this seems a bit different and I won’t be able to train on it until the swelling goes down as it is very very bad.

Sun 12 Dec 
REST DAY                

Weekly Mileage: 88


Footnote: It is now the following Thursday and I am on my fifth successive rest day.  On my return to the UK, my physio instructed me to go onto crutches and wait until the swelling goes down before I can start aquajogging/cross training.  Not sure how long I will be unable to run for at this stage.