Its My Ankle
Since my fall I have practiced every method known to modern medicine to care for a sprained ankle: iced regularly, elevated, wrapped, soaked, messaged and eventually stopped running all together. It had been the size of a softball until recently but surprisingly never hurt unless I poked at it so... I have run on it sporadically hoping against all hope that it would heal, it hasn't. What pisses me off is that I can walk on it, jump rope on it, even run on it without pain or discomfort, it has never even forced me to limp but it is still swollen and while probing in just the right spot....IT HURTS LIKE HELL. I tossed around the pros and cons of racing or not racing everyday last week but the fact is, something just is NOT right.
THE FALL
My left shoulder slammed into the ground as I rolled ass over tea kettle down the trail. A watter bottle emptied it's contents all over me as if I just had a drink thrown into my face. My head lamp flashed as I completed a final roll and stopped violently, breathless on a carpet of damp decaying leaves somewhere below the trail. The last remaining star in the pre-dawn sky looked down on me, laughing.
Stunned, I stared back at the laughing star as it faded away. A clammy cold settled over my sweaty body and I noticed pain in my left ankle for the first time. I remained motionless, trying to regain my faculties recalling the fall, vaguely at first. A twisted root had come into focus just beyond the beam of my headlamp, I altered my stride to avoid it, suddenly, another root, bigger and meaner, grabbed my left foot and flung me around like a rag doll, POP! air born.
I sat up shivering now. My ankle throbbing and upon inspection visibly swollen. I attempted to stand but a whirling dizziness forced me back to the ground. Above my my head lamp still blazing shed a path of light beckoning me upward, I crawled toward it recovering yard sale items along the way: the empty water bottle, one glove, a gel packet, the water bottle top. I shut off the head lamp when I reached it finding my self back on the trail. I stood, my left foot felt like I was wearing 50 pounds of ankle weights. I made every effort to keep pressure off of it while I rooted through my pack for a jacket, hat and other glove. I was still shivering and had a way to go before getting to a road let alone home.
I hobbled down the trail pain reminding me of my carelessness every step. The Nip Muck Marathon was just over a month away, I just crushed my ankle and was struggling to put one foot in front of the other. Up until my fall it had been a great outing. Earlier I had covered the 6.5 miles to the trail head in less than an hour, ascended the .8 miles of the "stair way", a steep rocky climb, in the dark in less than 20 minutes (a PR) and had descended effortlessly after a brief breather at the top.
Now expletives slipped through clenched teeth continuously as I made my way in the growing light of morning. Unsure how long it would take me to get home. Surprisingly the pain in the ankle seemed to subside my pace quickened, soon I was moving down the trail in a slow jog. Just as I started to consider that I may have avoided a disaster my ankle buckled again, gravity slammed me into the ground a second time and I found myself on my ass again, writhing in pain, swearing like a sailor. My ankle now the size of a soft ball. I had to get home.
The Decision
The race was Sunday 0800, I didn't run. It wasn't until Saturday that I made the decision NOT to run the 2013 Nip Muck Marathon. Yes, the Nip Muck Marathon that I had been preparing so hard for. The Nip Muck Marathon that I had finally gotten into after 3 previous attempts. The Nip Muck Marathon, My Goal Race.!! Soooo I am bitter and pissed off right now but the problem is that my ankle is still swollen and if I poke it in just the right spot....IT HURTS LIKE HELL.
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