The Injury

Now onto the speculated cause/instance of the injury.  I was following the basic training plan described in an earlier post as consistently as I could with my schedule.  I would miss a run here or there but made them up during the week or on my rest day (as I rested during the times I missed scheduled workouts).  With the race about 2.5-3 weeks out my swimming and biking were progressing incredibly well.  My distances had increased and my times were at or above my goals for this portion of my training.  My running however, had been my troubled area. Not that it was difficult for me to run, I was just not making the progress I had hoped to at this point in my training.

I should note here that I had lost some of my running form while in college.  This was a combination of my transition to bicycle racing for a few years and an injury I had while playing inter murals.  I got a stress fracture in my tibia while training and participating in my inter-mural Ultimate (Frisbee).  It got bad enough at one point, I was on crutches for two weeks.  After the injury I stopped running for a good while, probably almost a year but I cannot recall.    

Back to my Ironman training, during the course of my running training, and in the hopes to prevent further injury to my legs (including knees,hips, and feet) I had done quite a bit of research and had transitioned from a heel striker to a forefoot striker.  All those reading saying that this was a bad idea, I disagree, it was the right thing to do just not the right time or the right pace to do it in.  With forefoot striking come increase strain on the calf and arch of the foot.  These new added stresses to the calf and arch meet at the Achilles tendon!.  I did a pretty good job of taking it easy while increasing distance on the new foot striking technique.  I applied multiple strike techniques when going longer than a mile or two, heel striking and forefoot striking to keep the stress down on the calf and Achilles tendon and foot arch.

So at about 3 weeks out from the race, I decided that I was feeling pretty good and it was time to do a long run. So one Saturday I took off on a run off to my friends house 10 miles away.  more than I had every run before at one time in my whole life.