Ankle sprain cuts Marathon training run short!

Well, when you have a grade 2 tear of your calcaneofibular ligament, you know that you are walking on egg shells with every step. This has been my sad reality for the past 18 months. I am waiting to get into see an ankle ligament specialist, who more than likely will recommend surgery. Meanwhile, I carefully carry on with my life, walking and running on it.  While taking steps on it alone will not cause any trouble, all it takes is one little twist or roll and it will be put into a status of seizure for 24 hours.

My attempt to run 42.2k today was going well. I was feeling strong in terms of my energy levels, and my back & knees were holding out fine.  At the 17.7k mark, one little mis-step on a small rock on the trail was enough to twist the ankle. While it didn't initially hurt at the time, I knew it was only a matter of time before my run was doomed. It's like the Titanic hitting an iceberg.  While I had initially planned to do an out and back loop and come in for a gatorade break at 22k, I knew that if I stopped, the ankle would seize up almost immediately, as that has been a consistent pattern for the past 18 months whenever I sprained it.  I tend to sprain the ankle about once a week on average.

So I decided to carry on over to the pond and do as many laps as I could until I reached a state of near dehydration. at the 25k mark, i knew it was time to head home, so I did. I really wanted to run 42.2k today, but I knew that calling a quits at the 28k mark was the right thing to do. Better to cut a training run short and live to fight another day, than to do something stupid that would take me out of action for weeks or months.

28k in a running time of 3.44.39 is still an excellent run, given where I am at with my training. The best thing about a training run, is there's really no official finish line, which means there's technically no official failure for coming up short. Oh well, I think I had an excellent effort and I hope I did a good job honouring the Boston Marathon victims.

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