the achilles

so i was out riding today and i think i finally figured out how i injured my left achilles tendon while i was cycling back in october.  i was climbing a short steep hill today in a pretty heavy gear - so the rpm's were really low - and the 'pulling up' action in my left foot was - shall we say - less than comfortable when i was ripping as hard as i could.  doesn't help that i hadn't ridden in a week and a half, and then that was only 1 night of track racing (high rpm racing) and that i hadn't ridden for an additional week and a half before that.  so yeah, low rpm, high stress pulling up movements in my left achilles.  not so good...  you can think of the pulling up movement being the opposite of a calf raise exercise - instead of your calf working to push the weight down, you've got the calf/tendon working to pull the weight up.  and so back in october, i had just come off a lot of high rpm track training and went in to lower rpm road training - especially climbing hills in really low rpms - and in retrospect, i totally know the moment that i strained that tendon, too.  wow, such hindsight...  but hey, now i know - and knowing's half the battle.