I don't understand the body

My body is reacting oddly to the increase in running mileage. When I made the 3-week initial jump from 30-40-50 from early October I picked up a few minor knocks mainly in my feet, including an ankle/achilles ache and a strange swelling in the base of one of my toes. This was expected because a 20mi total increase in 3 weeks is a leap, especially by my standards. I was a little worried after a couple weeks of 50mi because the issues didn't get worse, but not much better. The toe stopped hurting but still swells a little bit (no redness or anything), but the achilles area still ached when walking or before warming up during a run. Leading into Vet's Day I felt it getting a little better, but of course I worried that I would just aggravate it during the race. I've been wearing trainers for all runs and workouts so I could protect my feet a little, so wearing flats during the 10k might have caused issues.

To my pleasant surprise, the race effort did not hurt my feet, but actually seemed to accelerate the healing! Including last night's workout I have run 25mi since the race and each day my feet feel better. I'm going to hit 60mi this week, so it's nice to see my body is indeed healing, even though I'm not decreasing effort or mileage. It's really weird how the body works!! Michelle knows what I'm talking about.

Monday AM I ran 8mi or so with Sam and Jake, feeling no fatigue or soreness from the 10k. Tuesday AM I ran 6mi around my neighborhood loop nice and easy, and it felt quite relaxing. Last night was probably my best track workout since the Spring. 2x1600 (5:04, 5:05), 2x800 (2:26, 2:24), 4x400 (67, 67, 65, 65) with relatively short recoveries. Led the 2nd mile (first was a little quick for the group), and the 1st 800. That was something I hadn't done since my Spring season. To be honest, that is what I've wanted to do most of all in workouts during this run build. I used to be able to lead and pace the B group earlier in the year during workouts. I haven't been able to since. The past few workouts have been good, but I was just sitting in and keeping up. This workout felt comfortably tough and I was able to take control of parts of it. Progress! The 67s and 65s at the end were pretty important to me, considering I want to work on my turnover/leg speed in the coming weeks.