Triseverance : Tags : half

Well people I guess I will treat this week as a little experiment. Can I recover from a grade 2 possibly 3 ankle sprain in one week to run a half marathon hopefully for the most part pain free. Since I have to look at this thing everyday I am going to make anyone who reads this blog look as well. SO LOOK, LOOK, I AM HIDEOUS!!!

Anyway I am on Alleve to control the swelling as well as I can. I am icing as much as I can, at work it becomes difficult however. I got in touch with my PT yesterday and he got me in for a massage and ice and stim session. I am doing the same today. I biked for 45 minutes on the trainer last night at an easy pace with no pain and only some minor discomfort when I really would flex my ankle to try and stretch it a bit. I am wearing a compression sock during the day that my PT gave me (those are the lines you see in my skin in the photo below)

As you can see over the last couple of days the localized swelling has gone down a bit and the fluid and blood has sort of pooled in my foot along the bottom forming a dark line and extending all the way up to the toes. It is not as quite as dark in the back as the photo makes it look, I think that is more of a shoadow. Camera phone does not have a flash. I am walking normally with little to no pain and I am working on my range of motion constantly extending my ankle out and back and making circles. My biggest concern is just soreness. I have enough range of motion to run but I am worried that unless I get the swelling and fluid out the discomfort of the impact associated with running may be an issue.

Thank you all for your concern, I do not think it is broken. I think I just have a pretty severe sprain and associated swelling. I will keep you all updated, as it stands now I plan on running Saturday morning. My main goal is continue to work on my range of motion and do whatever I can to get the swelling out of my foot and ankle. How hard I go will depend on how I feel. This is not an A race but to me often a race is a race is a race.

Foot and Ankle as of Tuesday Morning 10:00 am at the office. Yea I know it's ugly and I know it looks like a club, but honestly it is not as bad as it looks. Really I just keep telling myself that.

5 Comments Permalink Tags: sprained, ankle, recovery, half, marathon

Well I did my ten miler this weekend with the last 5 at my "desired" pace for the half that I am doing in two weeks. Lets just say my desires did not match reality on Saturday. It was a breezy day, not super windy but breezy, but I set the run up so that I ran the first five into the wind and would have a wind aided Race Pace section. I really have not done much hard training with all of this base training so I really did not know what to expect.

After five miles I stopped and stretched. You see I have been working on shortening my stride and increasing turnover to become more of a mid foot striker. I am not going so far as to try to go to the pose method but I am just trying to land more mid foot so I don't feel that thud when my foot strikes. I believe in the concept of keeping your footstrike under your center of gravity. But lets just say this change was one thing on the treadmill and shorter runs but over longer distances it has created some soreness in my lower calves.

Anyway, off I went on my return trip home telling myself to just hold pace gut it out and see what my HR's tell me. Well here is how it went.

Miles 1-5 Aerobic Warmup 8:55 avg HR 150

Miles 1-5	8:55	150
Mile 6	7:29	163
Mile 7	7:37	173
Mile 8	7:38	175
Mile 9	7:27	175
Mile 10	7:47	180

With my Lactic Threshold being somewhere around 170 it becomes pretty apparant that running in that 7:40 range has me over my LT and thus likely not able to hold this pace for a full 13.1 miles. So while my head says go out and try to run a 1:40 my body is telling me somthing different. I will need to give this some thought.

My initial reaction is why not just be satisfied shaving a bit off of my Half Marathon PR of 1:43:56?? I mean at that time I was in likely the best "running shape" I have ever been in, 4 weeks before my one and only marathon. But nooooo I think I can shave 4 minutes off that time, seriously who do I think I am? One voice in my head says dial it back have fun with the race the real goal is the Half Iron. But then I know running hard races builds mental toughness and that is such a big part of racing. I also know the 13.1 at the end of the 70.3 will be gut check time. But beyond all of this, and I may be crazy, but I can honestly say I have never "BONKED" in a race. Gone out to fast and not been able to hold on. While this is not someting I want to do. At the same time I wonder how do we know what is inside of us until we actually push ourselves to the point where the body finally pulls a Roberto Duran and cries NO MAS?

I need to set some goals for this race but I feel like I need to be realistic, I honestly don't think a sub 1:40 is in the cards until perhaps the fall. I will let you know what I decide later.

Here is a little snapshot of my week as planned. I need to add strength in there somewhere and I might stretch the swims out a bit. My other main goal for the week is to begin to catch up on converting my family video to DVD....I am only about three years behind on this. Thanks for reading, have a great week.