Joonas Rinne was supposed to stay at an altitude of 2,100 meters in Arizona, USA, but the mountain camp was changed to Urhea alpine lodge in Helsinki. A heel injury forced him to interrupt an important training camp.
A disappointed middle-distance runner walked through customs at Helsinki-Vantaa airport on Sunday. Joonas Rinne28, was scheduled to train in a very important training camp in Arizona, USA, until April 21 and then run in Los Angeles in the season opener in his second main trip, the 1500m.
However, the plans changed. While Rinteen was currently supposed to be in the familiar Flagstaff training center at an altitude of 2100 meters above sea level, by the end of this week he will be in Helsinki’s Urhea alpine hut, whose breathing air has been simulated to correspond to the same distance above sea level.
– The left heel already had sensations in Finland before the camp, but I left for America and started implementing the camp plan with the idea that the situation is unlikely to get worse, in Flagstaff in a famous Finnish club Raitanen’s top, by Eemil Helander, Mustafe Muusen, What Home beach, by Nathalie Blomqvist and by Camilla Richardsson Rinne, who trained with, told Urheilu on Thursday.
Compensatory training
When the 10-time Finnish champion of outdoor tracks noticed that the impact made the heel pain worse, he changed his plans and moved under the roof in Flagstaff, where he did e.g. replacement exercises with a bike ergometer and cross trainer. However, the heel pain did not subside, and there was no point, for example, in the planned, important intensity exercises in the terrain or on the track.
– At that point, it was concluded that it makes the most sense to blow the situation off and return to Finland to take care of the matter. I might have been able to continue, but it might have come at a heavy price.
Already in Arizona, a top-level muscle guard Pentti Niemi was able to tell an athlete who survived his long career with very few injuries comforting information regarding the tissue structure of the Achilles tendon. No tear was found there, but the pain would have come from somewhere else.
Inflamed bursa
– In Finland, I became a sports doctor From Ilkka Räsä referral to MRIs that confirmed the matter. There is an inflamed bursitis in the heel area, which causes pain. It means that the situation could be even worse if the injury was in the tendon tissue.
The heel was spiked with cortisone, which is believed to calm the bursitis by next week. Then Rinne believes he will continue training in his hometown Jyväskylä.
– Even after the autumn vacation, I have quickly caught up to a good rhythm of running again and I strongly believe that I can do it now too, says the miler, who missed the semi-finals of the 800 and 1500 meters last summer by a measly 0.24 seconds.
Next summer’s main goals are naturally the European Championships in Rome in June and the Olympic Games in Paris in July-August.
– You can still be very optimistic about them.
Last summer, Rinne ran his record on both his main distances: 1:45.88 and 3:37.65. Next summer from the trio Rinne-Raitanen-Santtu Heikkinen it is expected that the almost 52-year-old Finnish record of 1500 meters will be consigned to history. Pekka Vasala ran 3:36.33 when winning Olympic gold in Munich 1972.