I haven't done any running for a long, long time.  Way back in 1996 I played my last game of rugby, over in Perth for UWA, and then I busted a knee and decided running sports weren't such a good idea (busted the knee ski-ing, not running).  It's day one of the strength and conditioning course, and we're outside, and the drills we're going through are speed drills.  These guys are all running sports people, so .... it's running stuff.  Ok, I'll give it a go.  We do a few bits of some agility drills to 'warm up' (if you can call it that) and I do ok at them, old rugby instincts still work for playing tag.  For an old bloke with no running in his legs I'm not disgraced.  Then it's time for speed drills.  We do some rolling start efforts, running along at a jog then sprinting for 40 meters, walk back and repeat.  I'm not the fastest of the group, but feel ok.

Then we do 6 x 6 second standing starts on the 30 I think?  Something like that anyway.  I'm slow at these, close to last of our group, and getting some fatigue in muscles not used to working this way at all.  During one I get a small twinge in a quad, but it's ok.  Last one .. and about 5 strides in I feel my left achillies quite suddenly.  Ok ... That's not good!  I don't think it's anything bad, but it is quite tender to touch down one side of the tendon and walking (and stairs!) produces a bit of a limp as the tendon hurts when stretched.  I can get almost a full range of motion out of it and it doesn't feel swolen, and while I could ride last night at DISC during our warmup I didn't want to push it with any sprints so I ran the session from the floor, and gave the guys some time behind the motorbike (who crashed it?  It's bent!  Very unsettling to ride ...).  It's sore today but I'll take it easy for a few days to see how it goes, with some regular stretching etc.  So no lifting tomorrow I think, I'll just do an easy set on the rollers to tick my legs over for a bit.

We did catch the last 20 minutes of the HCC 'Sunday Roast' at DISC on Sunday, and saw Shane using his Summer Sprint Series honed sprinting skills at the end of his 120 lap race to win it.  I only had time for a brief chat with the V-Train but he seemed happy with how their racing had gone and was pleased with the turnout.

Also on Sunday the aboc MTB team rode at the second Chase the Sun enduro round and aquitted themselves very well.

Not much other stuff to report, the S&C course was good, but I felt a bit lacking, although once I get the workbook finished etc I'll have the qualification, it's really only L plates for a S&C coach, the information was covered quickly and with not a lot of depth, and the practical stuff was rushed and I think quite incomplete, but it was only two short days (9-4ish on both days) and there was a lot of material to cover.  Dean Robinson was our course lecturer and he's currently the S&C person for Geelong (AFL) and has a background in of all things rodeo riding, as well as both codes of rugby and weight lifting.  Quite an interesting bloke.  Very passionate about what he does. I think the level one cycling coach course better prepares a prospective coach for actual work in the field, despite being more general, but maybe that's the nature of the beast.

Time to scour the 'net for good ways to treat a strained achillies ...