5000m .. done, now a long long rest

Not much posting in the past month, simply because for a running blog, the key ingredient should be running... and I did not have much to say about it.


I did a MRI on the left foot and the diagnosis was that the pain at the ball of the foot was not caused by sesamoiditis or worse a stresss fracture, but by a tendinitis of the "Flexor hallucis longus" . Digging on the web, I found that one of the possible root causes is poor flexibility of the calves, which put therefore more strain on the foot during landing and push-off phase of the gait.
Therapy: RICE, NSAIDS and stretching of the calf.
At the same time, my right back/glute tighness did not go away and I am trying to work on it with the usual array of treatments: deep tissue massage, acupuncture, stretching, etc... (with little success).
So most likely my running season is over before even starting. I must say that the disappointment is big, but I took it with a certain philosophy. Somehow my body is not really well suited to running and I must accept it. I do not feel even the urgency to go back again to training asap because it would be even more disappointing to fall into further injuries.
The satisfaction from running is mainly in the process of reaching the ideal shape through proper training and exert myself to my limits, so scraping through some kind of sub-par training to be able to run later 37 min on 10k is not my idea of running right now.
I might come back in time for a spring marathon or maybe for Berlin in 11 months time... 
So I put my mind into my family, my work and helping our running club.


This said, I ended up anyway running the final of the HK 5000m track championship.
The weather was nice and I brought the kids along to cheer me and also to give them some kind of inspiration to take up some/any kind of athletic/sport (rather than sticking in front of a PC): my daughter loved watching the Pole Vault and it was so enjoyable to make the warm-up with her on the warm-up track, pretending to race each other on imaginary 50m finals. While my elder son got scared by the starting guns !


So I lined up at the start line totally relaxed that I had only to enjoy the day and keep on running for 12.5 laps...
Honestly, I felt much better than expected. I could not really extend the stride, but I was not really breathing hard. I felt like a 3000cc car shuffling at 30kmh because of flat tire...
The 12 laps went away quite quickly and I even found myself fighting at the last lap with another runner for the second-to-last place.. but I could not really run any faster.
At the end, I placed 5th in 17'10" which is somehow pathetic (for being a National Championship) and somehow a positive surprise because I could not believe that I would have run that "fast" after 2 months of no running...
Disclaimer: of the 8th finalists, 2 DNS and 1 DNF... so I arrived 5th 
Full results available HERE (there were good performances by the local sprinters).
But  the man of the day was my teammate Colin, who was able to complete an amazing double feat:

- in the morning, winning the 5000m
- afternoon, double it with also the victory in the 10000m 
Really a big hit which will cost me 3 bottles of wine which I willingly put at stake if he would have been able to achieve the double !! But well deserved !