Meteoric

They always appear when you least expect them. It's a minute or two after five, and I am driving towards the track where I am to meet Michelle Wolff for some speedwork. The entire sky suddenly brightens and then goes dark again. I look up and see the cause: a very bright green moving object. It's much brighter and faster than a plane, As soon as my brain can determine that it's a meteor, it disappears back into the darkness.

Michelle tells me that she didn't see it. She had probably not started out yet. The important question in my mind now is: would today's run be as meteoric? I'm mostly kidding here. I haven't done anything at all speedy for a good month. But today, I'm going to try. A little.

The important thing is to not hurt myself any further. I usually do pay for anything ambitious with excruciating Achilles pain. If I'm going to hurt anyway, why not push it a tiny bit faster?

Michelle has her own program. I decide to do some gentle 800s. I do one in about 4:10. That's slow, but I am happy with it. The best part is that it actually felt good. Not the Achilles, although that could be worse. No, I mean that it just felt good for my whole body to open things up. NO MORE SHUFFLING!!

I manage four more like that, and I realize that that's enough. Not quite meteoric, but I'm quite satisfied. It's good to feel tired and sore without having pain that's completely debilitating.

During breakfast, I remember to ice my Achilles. It still isn't too awful. But five minutes later, it is. It's completely awful. Debilitating with a capital D.

I don't know whether it was the ice or just a delayed reaction to the relatively hard run. But it's disappointing. And painful.