Well, I'm not doing so great.

About a month ago, I developed a sharp pain in my right ankle. I stayed off it, used ice for a bit and then went to the Dr. I was concerned that it might be a stress fracture. I've only run once since the pain started - about 4.5 miles very easy and it hurt. The doc did an xray and said it isn't a stress fracture, but an injury from about 15 years ago (basketball) that hadn't healed properly. A bit of weak cartilage had broken off and was twisting into the ankle joint, causing the pain. He gave me some stretching and strengthening exercises. Told me it was okay to run, but to use the pain as my guide - don't run if it hurts. And he has me scheduled for surgery in late August. His thinking is that it will likely remediate by then if I do the exercises, but that it takes 6-8 weeks to get onto the surgery calendar. This way, I'm scheduled and I can cancel if the problem goes away.  

So I've been doing the exercises (not religiously, but fairly regularly) and they do seem to help. I'm going for an easy run this evening - hopefully with good result.

I've been worried about this race owing to a nagging knee-cap injury. I've had more or less swelling due to water-on-the-knee from an injury back in January where I slipped on a chartered sailboat in the BVIs and whacked my knee. It was swollen but okay when I ran the B&A marathon in March, but has gotten tighter and more sore in training since, especially going down hills. I had gotten to the point of walking downstairs sideways.

So, I went to the orthopod yesterday and got about 6cc of fluid drained (aspirated?) from the outside of my left kneecap. Looked like pee! After that, he injected 2ccs of cortisone. It felt better almost instantly. After I got up this morning, I was bouncing down the stairs to make coffe and was half-way down before I realized it had been at least a month since it had last been that easy. So now I'm all psyched for the marathon on Sunday. No pain, so no worries.

Less than two weeks to the B&A marathon. Definately in taper mode. I took the past week off to let my knee heal a bit and then ran a short 5 miles last Saturday. It was an okay run, though I felt a bit leaden. Too much time off? Not sure. But my knee felt fine while I was running. I had planned to run 12 or so, but I got to about 5 and mother nature intervened. So I plodded on home to use the facilities and never made it back out the door again

But later that evening, my knee (outside, over the top of the cap) was very tender. I was quite worried, but by today (Tuesday) it feels fine again. So, I'm trying to decide if I should run at all during the rest of my taper, or if I should just let the knee rest, or if I should skip this marathon altogether! It's a hard decision. I'm signed up for Frederick in a couple of months, so the time off may be a good thing. But I really love the B&A marathon and want to run it. I'm sure I can get through it -- the issue is one of doing more permanent damage.

Ah well, decisions, decisions, decisions...