A couple of weeks ago, the trail running season around here kicked off with the Bridle Trails Winter Running Festival. Despite the fact that I wasn’t really up to running 5 miles (the shortest option) at a time, I signed up for it anyways. Largely because it was 10 minutes from my house. Besides, I figured I could just run easy for the first 45 minutes (which was as long as I was planning on running that day) and then walk the rest of it. Like an extended cool-down, really. Plus, it would be a chance to explore a trail system that I have run around several times on roads, but have never actually explored myself. Mostly because I’m afraid of getting lost in the woods.

I really shouldn’t have been. The main loop around the park is incredibly easy to navigate. Within the park it’s quiet and gorgeous with way more hills than you would think possible just looking at it from the outside. The best part? Despite being bordered on two sides by fairly active roadways (not main roads, really, but arterial side streets), it’s incredibly quiet within the park itself. You can hear some freeway noise on the west side of the park (which is about 1/2 mile from and parallel to the interstate), but if you didn’t know what it was, you might not even notice it. I even found myself feeling lost in the woods since once you leave the parking lot, you’re never close enough to the edge of the park to see enough road to recognize where you are. It was everything I look for in a trail, and 10 minutes from my house.

I felt so completely ashamed of the fact that I’ve lived near it for 4 years now and yet haven’t explored it. That will be changing soon, I can promise you.

The “twist” came about halfway through the race. The start waves were set up a bit unusually: all the 5 milers started first, followed by the 10 milers 10 minutes later, and then the 50k runners started 10 minutes after that. Which meant the first half of the race was spent periodically getting passed by really speedy people. On one hand, it was kind of cool, getting to see the front of the pack like that. On the other, it meant I frequently had to find a way to get over and out of the way on single-track trail. Not always easy, especially when said trail has an incredibly deep rut running down the middle of it thanks to the melting runoff from January’s massive snowfall.

Anyhow, at some point during one of these passings, I hit the edge of the rut wrong and rolled my ankle pretty good. I didn’t really think anything of it, since my ankles are prone to rolling and I can just about always walk it off in a few steps. So, after catching my balance (but not falling!), I slowed to a walk to do just that. It took longer than I was expecting, and after telling the third person in a row who asked that I was, indeed, OK, I started to wonder if perhaps I wasn’t OK after all. Just then, my ankle finally got with the program and felt OK. I took a few tentative jogging steps and was rewarded with a bit of pain, but nothing major and it quickly went away. I was OK after all. So I finished running my 45 minutes and then walked to the finish area.

I wound up walking for just under 30 minutes, which is about what I expected, so I was pleased with my overall finish time of 1:13 and change. Slowest 5 miler ever, for sure, but I’d gotten what I’d wanted out of it: a nice jog through the woods. By the time I got off the trail, though, my ankle was starting to talk back to me. It was tired of uneven ground and very much wanted to rest. I had about a quarter-mile walk back to my car, but it was down a paved roadway and wasn’t bad at all. When I left, I figured I’d just rolled my ankle really good and it would be just fine.

Which is was, mostly, until I took my shoes off for good and went to bed that evening. Once I was lying down and there was nothing to stop it, the swelling started. It didn’t get that big, but it was swollen enough to be seen and to be painful. I got up at 1 am and it hurt to step on it. By 2 am I couldn’t walk on it at all, and by 2:15 it hurt to wiggle my toes.

It also hurt enough that going back to sleep wasn’t really happening. I tried, convincing myself that it would be fine until the urgent care center opened up in the morning, but the facts were these: I couldn’t sleep, I was in an impressive amount of pain, and I was starting to realize there was an excellent chance I’d broken it. By which I mean, if someone asked me about their foot with my symptoms, the first thing I would have them do would be to get it x-rayed to rule out a fracture.

So, I woke up my husband at 2:30 in the morning so we could go get my foot looked at. Which he did so with very little complaint. The great thing was that our new suburban ER was a 10 minute drive away and was completely deserted. We were in and out of there in under an hour, and that included waiting around for the radiologist to double-check the films and confirm the doctor’s findings. (Standard practice is to discharge you once the doctor reads the x-rays and treats accordingly, and to call you back if the radiologist sees something significantly different.) Since the drugs were kicking in at that point, I had no problem waiting around for an extra 20 minutes. It’s not like I had anything else to do, really.

Both the radiologist and the doctor agreed: no fracture, just a really good sprain. Those of you that follow me on Twitter will recognize this shot:

Das boot! (Which is actually German for, "the boat," but is still fun to say.)

Yup, they gave me a boot and crutches. Luckily, I was out of them by the end of the week. However, given how much walking I was going to have to do around school, I was thankful to have them.

That was two weeks ago, and I’m pleased to report that the ankle is doing really well. I took a week completely off from working out to let it heal, and this past week I reintroduced weights and yoga. I’ve pissed it off a couple of times (it’s not quite ready for lunges yet), but overall it’s making good progress. I’m going to try adding a couple of spinning classes this week, and if that goes well I’ll start on the elliptical next week. I’m not allowed to run for at least another 4 weeks (self-imposed), and perhaps longer if it doesn’t tolerate the elliptical well. I’ve also restarted my PT ankle exercises to help strengthen up those muscles a bit and give the ankle a bit more support.

I’m hoping to be back to running by the middle of March, which still gives me plenty of time to train for the half marathon I’m running in June. I’ve got plenty of wiggle room in there, so right now I’m just focusing on how the ankle is doing. No jumping back into running before its ready for the sake of meeting some predetermined schedule. Just taking it easy until it proves to me that it’s ready to get back to it. Because taking a bit of extra time now is going to be far better than hobbling through the entire summer with an angry foot.