Ok, so here's the deal

I’m not limping around.  There’s a little bit of tenderness around the outer part (anterior?) of the ankle, so it’s not healed, yet.  We’re coming up on a month since I rolled it the second time (12/8 was the day) and if it takes a month to 6 weeks to heal then I should be in the clear in a couple of weeks.  I’m eyeballing the weekend of 1/13 to go out and do some light hiking (with a brace on).

 

Running with physical, structural pain is a bad, bad plan.  That’s a good way to set in motion a cascade of other ailments that just wreck you.

 

Of course, that’s not the same as running with emotional pain.  I can’t tell you how many runners I know who are literally running FROM something and the only way they can quiet their demons is by pounding mile after mile out, day after day.

 

No, that’s not me.  Sorry.  I like my family.  I like my life.  I’m just trying to not be fat sick and dead and maybe make the world a better place while I’m at it.

 

So, anyway…

 

The plan as it stands is to do some light hiking on MLK weekend out at Lake Livingston.  Then, if everything is holding up and in working order, go out and try to ease my way back in to a mile.  After the mile, I’ll start stretching out for weekend long runs. 

 

I’ve been growing a beard for the last 2 or 3 months (I can’t remember when I last shaved).  I’m getting kind of tired of it because it’s long(ish) and scratchy.  What I think I’ll do is shave when I start back out on the streets and then grow a “50 mile beard”.  That might be fun.

Ok, so where things stand

Want to know something fun?

I took care of my Achilles tendonitis and properly stretched and treated that annoyance.  Things were feeling good.

Then the week before thanksgiving I go with the fam to Enchanted Rock (people not from Texas, google it) and do some camping and hiking.  It was awesome.  Enchanting, even.  I hiked the summit, then around the Rock.  It was pretty boss.

It was SO boss that I decided to do it again the next day.  That’s when, as I was walking down the steps toward the trail that goes to the summit, I sprained my ankle.

Derp.

 

Left foot rolled under, leg collapsed, I fell down 3 steps, ended up square on my ass.  It was painful.

 

No…  painful would have been an upgrade.  It was white hot throbbing bolts of lightening up the outside of my leg into my hip agony.  We had a 4 hour trip home.  And we were stopping to camp overnight halfway there because we thought that would be fun.

 

My god I was in so much pain.

 

Then about 3 weeks after that, as everything was slowly getting to the point where it wasn’t completely painful to walk on it again…

 

I reached down to pick something up and my foot rolled under me. A white hot bolt of searing agony ripped through my leg and I ended up ass over hips laying in the street.  I took a couple of pain killers, iced it, wrapped it, drank some whiskey, and laid down for a long winter’s nap.  That was about a month ago, now.  I’m MOSTLY pain free, with just a bit of tenderness around the ankular region.  The limp is gone.  I have nearly full range of motion.

 

I feel old and broken down.  I’m only 42.

 

I need to get out and be active again.  This is driving me absolutely nuts.