It’s happened again. My Achilles has officially relapsed. I thought it was beyond that stage, but I was wrong. It wasn’t feeling too bad on Monday but has gone downhill since then.

I was approaching my training as though the injury was 100% healed. Clearly, a torn tendon takes a long, long time to be completely repaired. Perhaps it will never be 100% again. And I’ve obviously stressed it more than it could handle at the moment.

Anyhow, I’m not taking any chances this time, drastically reducing my training to almost nothing over the next two weeks. I want to hit it on the head now, then resume my training for the Anzac Ultra. Given that it came on so suddenly and unexpectedly, it may clear up fairly quickly too. But I’m not going to risk doing too much until I’m sure.

Kevin Carr has now made it over the Andes and is on the long descent. He has just reached Uspallata in Argentina, a lovely town that I really enjoyed when I ran through there some 27 months ago. Kevin now has 3360 km to run in 51 days if he is to set a new world record.

On This Day

Feb 18, 2012

Distance today = 53.71 km; Total distance = 2227.02 km; Location = Plaskett, California – 35 54.653′ N, 121 27.957′ W; Start time = 0940, Finish time = 170

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/150647390

Now that was a great day of running. This stretch of coast is truly spectacular. Just have a look at the photos. And I still have another day of it to come.

But there was more. It began when I was joined by a cyclist who asked “Are you the guy running around the world?” We talked for a while, until he told me about the fellow who is planning to do a triathlon around the world – starting with a swim across the Atlantic Ocean. What?????????????

A little after that, a local policeman pulled up in his California Highway Patrol vehicle (yes, a real ChiPs car). He also asked “Are you the guy running around the world?” He even stopped and got out and shook my hand.

But wait, there’s more. Just down the road, another cyclist rode by and said there were two girls down the road on bikes who were riding from the tip of South America to Alaska. He said I should talk to them (I assume all these people knew who I was because of the news item on KSBW two evenings before).

As we approached, I spoke with the girls and told them what I was doing. We stopped and chatted for a while longer and took photos of each other and exchanged cards. They were two young Swiss girls – Monica and Martina – and had been at it for nearly two years already. It’s great to see people being so adventurous.

It was a pretty eventful start to the day. While the remainder was quieter, it was still a very enjoyable run.

Mobile reception was still non-existent, so there is no tracker update. We are staying some way down the road in San Simeon (I will actually run to here tomorrow). There is reception here with AT&T, but as I am on T-Mobile, I can only access phone calls and texts, not data (such as Google Maps, the tracker, internet etc.). I will have to wait until I have T-Mobile coverage for these things. Very disappointing – I’m not used to being out of range for so long.