Nice work, improvements are coming step by step!
[...] it gave me the confidence to keep pushing for 5, than 7 with an option on 8.
haha, this is how it goes... set off for an easy run and then keep thinking "maybe extend it a little bit" at points along the way because the legs don't feel tired at that stage, yet. then, when the fatigue does set in, you're too far away from home because it was all such a breeze up until that point and you have to force out the last 3 km all wobbly because your dumb brain thought it was smart to keep extending the run to a half marathon
that has clearly never happened to me ever, no sir.
I've developed a rather weird strain on my right achilles tendon. the connection at the heel seems to be irritated, possibly a little inflamed. weird situation about this: as long as i actually strain the tendon (i.e. running, walking, biking) this doesn't hurt. but any extended period of rest means the whole situation will go slightly inflexible and hurt like crazy if i do end up moving it. getting out of bed in the morning is a b***** because of this and it just gradually gets better over the day.
this seems to be a fairly common runners thing, sometimes goes chronic (no bueno). i've already had 4 pages of tips and exercises sent over by a friend from the "runners bible" (it says to keep doing those for at least 12 weeks) and will be trying those to see if it goes away with the combination of maybe not running for a few weeks.
update on this: still doing the excercises (which basically consists of standing one-legged on a step, dipping the heel down (i.e. stretching the achilles out) then going up as far as it'll go. repeat 15 times, 6 times a day. my calves are slowly turning to bricks.
anyway: had a very nice improvement, although the discomfort is still there, especially after getting up in the morning. it is much improved though. when i posted about it originally, i would wobble and stumble about for the first half hour of every day, while now everything at least works as usual. cycling doesn't seem to have any adverse effects at all, so I'm doing a lot more of than instead of running. running... i tried for a 10k some time last week, and that wasn't great. at the end (last 2km) and for the following day, the bloody heel hurt, so that wasn't good. interestingly enough, that irritation went away much quicker than i expected, next day i was basically back to where i was before the run.
anyway: I'll keep an eye on things... not running for now.