a little Deja Vu

Summer officially started yesterday.  And while it is a great feeling, I am left with a bittersweet taste; I woke up on Wednesday with a shooting pain in my achilles and plantar region of the foot.  Usually I would get one of these injuries from running, but since I am barely running and not doing any workouts, it seemed a little surprising.  I pondered over the injury alot on the ride back to Waconia last night.  I couldn't elicit any pain on pressure, and yet certain positions in my body cause the pain to shoot down.  I am thinking it is either a pinched nerve in my leg or a back problem, probably from using the tri bike.  As weird as it is, it seems like the most plausible explanation, yet I'm left without any real idea what to do to get better.   So with my typical luck, I start the season on a bit of a question mark.  I can't run, I don't know if I can bike, and I'm too pissed to swim (at least today).  My mind keeps shooting back to last summer...a week after competing the first race of the year, I rolled my ankle completely over on a rock.  I had to stumble the two miles back home, which didn't help either.  By that time, it had swelled to a grapefruit and appeared to be broken.  At least that is what my "optimistic" dad and the ER doc thought.  Luckily it wasn't, but it was put in a cast for 5 days.  So after taking a week off working out at the start of the racing season, and 4 weeks entirely off running, I thought the season would be a waste.  But I still raced well upon return and ran alot better than I expected.  My first run back, aside from 2 minutes the day before, was the Waconia triathlon where I managed a top three run split.  I was too cautious so I never got back into running last summer besides 5-10 miles a week.  I'm hopeful that thoughts of last summer can keep me optimistic as I get healthy, and at some point, get in racing shape.  And even if it is delayed, I didn't really start racing until the end of June last year.  Plenty of time...