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Completely normal range of movement and no grinding, really only flares up when I try to put pressure on it, either skidding or resisting or when I am accelerating. It's definitely to do with the 'ankling' movement, because I definitely use the ankles both for hill-climbing and for hill-descending.
Have gotten it before so I know it'll go away (but thanks @marcomarcos for pointing out the danger if I keep at it); think the point of the question was, should I avoid this as bad technique, and just use my brakes more/give up earlier at steeper gradients?
youClown-
How much riding do you normally do? If you went from sofa to touring, you're more likely to get something like this than if you're busting out 200s every weekend. So that's the first thing I'd think about - sudden uptick in volume, like a tour, could be all it takes. It may be one of climbing or descending creating the issue or it may be the whole lot.
I'd still also think about position though. How might you reduce the need for the ankles to be involved so much - is your saddle too high? Are your cleats too far forward? etc. I'd expect if you were out of the saddle climbing you wouldn't need to be on your tip toes so much so perhaps you did a lot of seated climbing or perhaps it was the descending? I used front and back brakes mostly so I could take the load off my legs when descending on the longer fixed rides.
hippy
Could do with more detail - does it feel like your tendon is grinding when you move your foot? Does it seem to make noises like your tendon has rusted? Can you feel it 'grinding'. If you think it's an overuse injury, it's normally because it's an overuse injury :)
"I rode across a country recently and my tendons are a bit graunchy.. what say you, doc?"
It'll go away. If it's persistent you can do what I did and go midfoot, but an intermediate solution is to move cleats further back to reduce the 'ankling' movement in your pedal stroke (and you may need to drop the saddle too).
If you search this forum I've probably talked about doing very slow calf raises and lowers as a means to help fix tendonitis (something about lining up the tendon fibres, you'd need to google it)