Achilles Tendon

Had a couple of weeks of good running since my last post.  Missed a couple of days here and there however.  Sunday night the day after Saturday's orientation had to pick up my son at the airport just before midnight.  That the day after getting up at 4:55 AM was pretty tough.  Really tired.  So the next morning I slept in till 7:30 and skipped my morning run.  Rest of the week was pretty much to schedule.  43 total miles with 14.5 coming on my Saturday long run. (Was going to do a little more but had to take my son to the airport for his morning flight to Pittsburgh.)  I was looking forward to this week as I was scheduled to run over 50 miles.  ( I would have last week except I didn't run my 7.5 mile run on Monday.)  So 7.5 Monday and 10 on Tuesday.  First mile is always about 8:30 pace with succeeding miles under 8:00 and usually under 7:00 toward the end.  Feeling a bit stiff I decided to take Wednesday as a rest day and not to the 5 "recovery" miles.  Thursday another 10 miles and Friday an easy 5.  This morning headed out for my long run hoping to do about 17.5 miles.  As I started out felt a little faint discomfort in my right ankle but no big deal.  I often have these minor discomforts.  But about 1.5 miles or so in, I had a sharp pain in my right Achilles tendon.  So sudden and painful that I hopped on my other leg for a step.  The pain lessened considerably but was still there as I continued running.  Kept hoping that it would go away or fade to something barely noticeable but it remained.  Didn't get noticeably worse so I kept going.  Made it home for my half way point pit stop in my driveway.  Had a glass of water and some Accel gel.  Back on the road all was well.  But the pain was still there.  After a few miles it seemed to be just a little more noticeable.  Not a good sign.  Kept going for another mile then decided to shorten my route.  Cut a few miles off and ran home.  So just a little over 14 miles total.  But wish I had done less.  Seems the pain is some sort of Achilles Tendonitis.  Resting a little but had a few chores to do.  Took a couple of ibuprofen earlier today.  Did a fair amount of reading online about Achilles injuries.  Seems I am going to need to rest and not just a couple of days this time.  Darn.  Right now I am hopeful that I can give it a try next Saturday as that day is the Do Wacka Do Trail Run near Erick, Oklahoma http://www.dowackadotrailrun.com/  I signed up a few weeks back to do the 25K.  Sure hope I can go.  But if I'm still feeling discomfort then I will have to cancel.  Better a little temporary disappointment, than multiple weeks of injury and recovery.   The ibuprofen is not recommended as it can slow healing of injuries.  http://myrunningdoc.blogspot.com/2010/05/nsaids-why-runners-should-think-twice.html  So guess the two I had this morning will be all for the day.  In hindsight I should have taken Friday as a rest day.  I was feeling pretty stiff and achy the evening before, having run 10 miles with an increasing pace that morning.  I'm starting to think that at my age perhaps the recovery miles are not really helping and that I would be better off just resting on those days.  That would have me running about 4 to 5 days a week.  A lot closer to what the FIRST training program teaches.  http://www2.furman.edu/sites/first/Pages/default.aspx
Their program is 3 intensive runs per week.  Maybe 4 per week would work best for me.  We'll see if I can adapt my Pfitzinger 18/70 schedule to a 4 run per week plan.  ( I was planning to start that a week from now.) 
Happy Trails y'all!