Foot pain and lack of racing

I haven't been out racing so much recently, or testing things because of a minor issue with my foot.
A few weeks ago I went out on a bit of a run down the Alport and back up Kinder North edge, but it went a bit haywire, what with lack of water, lack of food, lack of fitness and the beginnings of a chronic pain in my left foot when I ran.

It was the landing of the foot on the floor that was creating the pain, the cushioning part of the gait as the foot takes the weight of the body that was the issue. I think I may have got a minor ligament sprain or tendon strain (more probably the ligamant), and so I just needed to rest the foot.

After a bit of prodding and poking it seemed that the issue was when I bent the foot, that was the point where pain occured. So. If I can do exercise without bending my foot, then all will be fine. As soon as the foot was bent, that was where the pain occured, and if it was painful, it wasn't going to get better.
Bendy running shoes obviously weren't going to be any use. However, I did just get a new pair of carbon soled cycling shoes.
Brilliant. Exercise without bending the foot.
So I have spent the last couple of weeks either thrashinh around on the road bike, or killing myself on the turbo. No running, and modifications of the stuff I'm doing in S+P so that the foot wasn't aggravated, and 3 weeks later, I'm back to running again.

Excellent.
However, I am now down in London for the next 3 weeks providing massage support for the Olympics, so there is going to be no Fellrunning for a while. I am taking the opportunity to get out on some flatter territory, though, which may help improve my speed somewhat. In view of that I was out with Rob a couple of days ago on a 10k run, him on a bike and me thrashing around behind him. It wasn't the fastest time in the world, but I've never really done that kind of thing before.
With a bit of planning and thought I should be able to improve on speed and recovery.
(and as a minor point on that, after that 10k on Sunday I thought I was going to have horrific pain on Monday morning, but I iced my calfs and rolled out as well- hey presto, no pain the next day. Very happy).

With any luck I'll be back up to full fitness and with improved speed in no time.

Oh- and I was over at the Bolton Ironman expo on Thurs and Fri last week, if you haven't seen the blog about that, its over here