The long and winding road...to recovery

It seems like an eternity ago that I suffered my injury, it's actually only 14 weeks. I say 'only' but that's an incredibly long time for someone who has been running consistently for 8 years.

The only other time I suffered previous was with Achilles problems a few years ago, but I wasn't out for this length of time.

The ankle is still not right, I get pains when I move it in certain positions it looks slightly deformed, but it is slowly healing. I am feeling progress.

I've had enough now of waiting, and I've become impatient, and tried to get out the door for a couple of runs recently. I went with my eldest son on the trails of the local ranges. It was great, the ankle felt ok (ish) and running with my son was a bonus too. I felt like I had retuned home.

Last week and I ran in a new area on the way home from a work meeting. Beautiful area but I kept mostly to the roads as I didn't know where I was running. Achieved 4 miles but the Tarmac was not good for the ankle and I felt like I had gone backwards with recovery.

I did however find a stream to give my ankle a nice natural soothing ice bath!

I ran in my lunch break this week along the canal and for the first mile was getting excited with how the ankle was feeling and holding up, but by the end of the 3.5 mile run normal service had resumed, and the aches and pains were back.

I'm going to try my local parkrun in the morning, it's fields and canal path so the terrain should be kind on the injury and I'll see how I feel after that.

Nutrition is an interest to me, but that's gone out the window (comfort eating) and as I'm not running I'm enjoying the extra glass of vino knowing I've not got to get up early the next morning! Eating and drinking a slippery slope....I'm not going down. The minds become jaded and definitely not as clear with what regular running brings (runners will know what I mean). I have found green smoothies though (see last post) so good for you, and cheap and easy to make. I have definitely felt the benefit of these and I would highly recommend.

I've got 3 months to prepare for a marathon, I still believe I can make it, I'm cycling a couple of times 

and got back into swimming and try and swim at least 800m two mornings a week, and every few days now I'm going to throw in a short run to slowly strengthen the ankle plus icing and stretching.

I'm still waiting for the results of my MRI scan which I had ages ago, but a mix up with appointments meant it got delayed. Only another week to wait for that though.

It's been a tough few months but it has taught me one thing, never take the gift of being able to run for granted.