Training and Injuries

I know I post on this quite often. But it is something of interest to me, and very close to heart. Over the last few years, endurance sports have taken their toll on my body, but I have also gained tremendous results from them.
The worst thing about injuries is the mental worry that is left behind. I find myself constantly feeling niggles in my right achilles. Anyways, one good thing about injury is that I have finally started to pay attention to my body and what it is telling me. Don't get me wrong, I could be better, but baby steps right.
Anyways, a few weeks back, 1 week after signing up for Iron Man actually, I had a 18km training run, and at 13 kms I got a good old pain in the right achilles. Stupidly I had been feeling something all run which I ignored, but to be fair, it felt more like a "I'm being paranoid pain", rather than anything serious.
Anyways I flagged running straight away. 1 wk off before testing it out again, then physio and a test run to decide whether to continue with the Marathon or not. The physio came up with some good advice, I followed it, and hit out a training run on Sunday the 2nd Aug. The rule was if the run went well, do the Marathon, if it didn't, don't be dumb, and flag the Marathon. Anyways the run went well, but for once common sense kicked in, and I decided to only run 15kms of the 35kms that I wanted to do, thinking it was silly to run so far after an injury scare.
From this run I pulled up fine, and the leg felt fine all run, but I realised that I like running so much, and Iron Man is so important to me that cancelling the Marathon was the smart thing to do.
Nonetheless, I got a solid 8 weeks of training in for the marathon in which I gained some great fitness which will put me in a great place for starting Iron Man training in September.
Now a few weeks on, I am running and loving it. Sometimes it pays to listen to the body ;-)