The Tale Of An Ankle

Sometimes, as runners, we deal with injuries. Maybe it is a knee (been there) or a foot (been there, too), but now I am dealing with an ankle. I ran my first half marathon on Sunday, and my ankle had been an issue before, but now it has become something that has me on the sideline.

This is something that dates back a few weeks, and I think it is related to a previous issue with my Achilles. I don't know if I had simply subconsciously altered my form whole struggling with that, if my barefoot running just increased to dramatically, or if my minimal shoes are too worn down, but now my left ankle is shot. During the half, where I managed to finished at about 1:57, it started to hurt after the first few miles, but I just pushed through because I am stubborn. I didn't want to be that guy being carted back to the start, and I just wanted to get my finisher medal like everyone else.

As the race went on, I had an inkling that something was wrong, and I really started to feel it after I finished. By the evening, I could barely walk on it, and by Monday, I almost didn't make it to the shower in the morning. I made it to work, but I was able to get an appointment with my doctor, so I took the afternoon to get things checked out. He looked at the ankle, and judged by the location of the damage that my ankle might be broken. I got a cortisone shot, an x-ray, some painkillers and anti-inflammatories. The x-rays came back negative, but the doctor wasn't convinced, so he ordered a bone scan for today.

I just got back from part one of the scan, and I will go back in a out an hour. Hopefully I will have some answers by the end of the day, but right now I am on crutches, but I feel much better. I am not ruling out a hairline fracture of some sort, so I am glad I am getting the scan, but I am also becoming more hopeful that this is something I can recover from quickly. The key here is that I don't want to miss my marathon in May, but I am not going to push myself to do so. I am going to heal 100%, and if that happens in time to run it, then great. If not, I will just have to reassess and move on.

At this point, even if I heal in time, I will probably not be trained enough to straight up run the marathon through and through, but I'd like to at least shiw up and run/walk it. Time will tell, and today's scans will give me a lot of information. I am just going to have to keep icing, elevating, compressing and using anti-inflammatories. I will just monitor my progress and take it easy - what will be, will be!

I am still proud of myself for my half-marathon time, and endurance-wise, I was fantastic. In fact, the last 3 miles were fantastic because I had so much more left in the tank than a lot of people around me, so I was passing people left and right. If I were healthy, I can only imagine what kind of time I would have put up. This is just a step in the right direction with a little pause in my overall goals.


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