Wednesday, March 30, 2011

My Ankle

A couple of weekends ago, March 18, I managed to twist/sprain my ankle while working in my garage.  Lindsey was out and about and I was home with Tyler.  He and I had gone out and dropped off the recycling, returned a few items, bought some screws, and gone to McDonald's.  Once I had him down for his nap I went back out to the garage to get back to work.  I wanted to get the garage rearranged in order to make room for a fridge that my dad would be bringing from his place.  I was in the process of hanging a yard tool rack, had the holes drilled, and was going to move the ladder to get to the last screw, when I decided to miss the last step of the ladder.  I hit the ground with my right foot, twisted my ankle and immediately felt pain. 

Flashback to last May.  Tossing a football around the back yard with my brother-in-law, I managed to land awkwardly on the same ankle.  On a jump to catch the ball, I landed on the ankle such that the sole of my foot was facing the left leg, a pretty bad sprain that took about 6 weeks to heal up. 

Back to the present.  My first thought concerning this latest injury was, "Crap, if this is hurt as bad as last time, and I am going to be off of it for 6 weeks, I am not going to reach any of the goals this spring."  I limped into the house grabbed and ice pack, and texted Lindsey in hopes of getting some sympathy.  Now, I should have realized this injury wasn't as bad as the last one right away considering I was able to get up under my own power and hobble into the house.  Second, after about an hour on the couch, ice and some ibu, there was only a dull ache in the ankle.  So as soon as Lindsey gets home and looks at my ankle, she pronounces is "not that bad" and tells me to get up and walk around on it to see if I can do anything.  Now, what I really wanted was an excuse to watch basketball.  So I got up, and realizing that most of the problem appeared to be in my head, got back to work in the garage.  I finished hanging the yard tools, moving boxes, and generally cleaning up the garage, which is now ready to house a second fridge. 

All in all, the ankle wasn't that bad.  But I am a softy and a bit of a whiner, and my wife, bless her, takes it, but knows when to push back.  So, I got out and did my chores, planted some plants, cleaned the garage, all that, and then Saturday I actually got out and Umpired my first baseball game in about three years.  The game was a Varsity game (I was supposed to do a JV game, but it ended up being cancelled).  I did however, get to skip my long run Sunday (not that I wanted to), in favor of cleaning out Lindsey's craft room, which houses the stationary bike, which I am back to riding twice a week. 

I finally got back out on the road Tuesday, March 22, to try out the ankle.  Tuesday's are speed days on the training schedule, and this was a 4x400, I set up the coaching on my RunKeeper app, and set off to do the work out.  The coaching on the app worked great, as it beeps when it is time to start a new interval.  My ankle was sore at first but once I was warmed up was great.  So Tuesday was a huge success.  Thursday, I got out and did my Tempo run, 4 miles at 8.5min/mile.  I was a bit slow on the last miles which was a bit disappointing, but I did get all 4 miles in.  Then on Sunday, I reached a new milestone, crossing 7 miles on my long run.  It was a great week even after the ankle scare.

I promise to update and share on the training plan which kicks into high gear next week.

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