Injuries and Ultras

Well it seems official that I am injured. Not the kind of injury that my people(endurance junkies) like either. The type of injury that is there but kinda not really. Basically the long and short of it is some sort of ankle injury which I can not even pin point when it happened. My best guess is that it occured during my double race weekend on Oct 1st and 2Nd. On Saturday I did a all out off road duathlon and then on Sunday came back with a half marathon which I ended up going a little harder than planned and pr'd. Never felt anything in particular and was actually fine until Tuesday when I just felt like I rolled my ankle of the trails. Well having a Ultra in two weeks made me think it would be best to stay off of it and use it as a "super" taper. My legs were getting pretty smashed up from a big month of shorter, harder races so it was a welcome break.

For the record normal people with ankle injuries do not run 50K off road trail runs. I however am not normal people and realized my own stupidity several (see hundreds) of times during the race. I did feel going into the race that my ankle would be a problem but would not prevent me from completing the run and seeing as I was registered and we use it as an excuse to head to CT and see the in laws it was a go. Well the ankle did not really hold me back and only really hurt when twisting or turning it. I finished almost an hour ahead of what I did two years ago at this race but was about a half hour from where I thought I could be. All in all the race was great, the weather cooperated, and it is always nice to be in the woods running.

So it is now a week after the 50K and the ankle still bothers me. This is where I start to get worried because the long and the short of it is I need this to go away. I love running, and especially love running ultras where the races tend to be more laid back then triathlons (like a thousand times less). I have the opportunity on the table to run one and maybe even two more ultras before winter hits and I am stuck with spin classes, treadmills and endless laps in the pool. So it is important to me to deal with this now and not let it linger. But like I said earlier it is the kind of injury that is not restricting but that you know is there. My fear is that the doctor will not have a concrete idea of what it is and just give me the usually, "stay off it, take Motrin and see me in two weeks". Nothing is more frustrating for an athlete then a non answer to a injury. Tell me something,, anything and put a concrete time table on it. How great would it be if the doctor said, "Dana, looks like a sprain of the medial frontal typhoid angular ankle tendon and if you rest it for 13 days and 6 hours you should be back to normal". Don't really see this happening so I guess I am in runners limbo until then.

So I guess what all this drivel that I just wrote means is I need to get my arse to the doctor so he can charge me my co-pays, take an educated guess and tell me running is not the best thing for an ankle injury. And with that I will have to play along and become mildly depressed as the season comes to an end. We all hate injuries and I guess on the bright side this is the best time for one, so I will play along and use this time to write more blogs (topics anyone??).