Gah! My Ankle!

Yeah. You read that right. I used "gah!" and "my ankle" in the same phrase; I know it doesn't sound good.

Today was a nice, easy recovery run. I have class at 8am, so I was getting out before class to avoid traffic and what not. Its peaceful out anyways. Nobody is on the roads. Its quiet. A few medical students wandering to the various hospitals on campus. Maybe some older folks walking around. Then all of a sudden a choice four letter word breaks the silence as half my foot goes into a pot hole.

It only hurt for a second, then it felt fine. I broke the cardinal rule and I finished my run after twisting my ankle. After I finished, I iced it as a precaution. I could tell something was a little off about it, but it never swelled up. I talked to my family doctor (literally, its my dad) about it, and its just a stage 1 sprain (maybe it was phase, I remember the 1 for sure!). This means there are just some micro tears that will heal up after a little rest. It shouldn't take me out of the game for Chicago unless I do something really stupid.

Tomorrow I had a hard workout at the track planned, but I'm cancelling that. I'm going to take Thursday and Friday off, which will give it 72 hours to heal up. I have my long run still on the schedule for Saturday. The first six miles of it is a loop, so I have an easy way to bail out if it goes poorly. In fact, even if its feeling good, I might just run on that loop for the majority of my run just to play it safe.

All day I've been doing the whole Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation (RICE) scheme. I've mixed in a little bit of heat since it isn't swelling. I know the ice is what I'm supposed to do, but the heat is what actually make it feel better. Ice kind of makes it feel like a hinge that needs oil. Tomorrow I only have one class all day, so I'll have a lot of time to keep it elevated and iced. Friday is pretty low key too.

I haven't been stretching it at all yet because I've read stretching an injury immediately after it happens can actually make the tears worse. Although I'm not sure what the definition of 'immediately' was; is it a few hours? a day? If you know, share the knowledge!

I suppose all I have to do now is wait and keep at it with the RICE.

On the bright side, its storming like crazy right now, and I love a good storm!

I hope everybody else's running is going well.

-Doug