So a few people saw me tweet that I rolled my ankle the first weekend of June. Upon arrival in Honolulu, as I descended the escalators to baggage claim – BOOM. My ankle rolled. I slide down the escalator on the side of my ankle. It was not pretty – so ugly in fact that the airport security yelled after me asking if I needed an ambulance.
DH made an observation – when I am tired I get injured – and I have to admit that he is right – there is a trend. Like at CapTex Triathlon in 2012 when I was a bit foggy and happened to have a tire blow out on my bike which resulted in fractured ribs. Or when I sublux my knee – which happens about twice a year and usually when I am feeling a bit exhausted from travel. Or when I stumble when walking, caused by not really paying enough attention to what my feet are doing, not picking them up enough. I get injured when I am tired.
As my running coach said when I tweeted him my photo:
“You don’t do things in halves, do you?!”
No. Not when it comes to dreaming big. And not when it comes to silly injuries.
Getting injured at the start of June was just not what my training needed. I had planned a bunch of lovely low distance runs while on holidays, to get my legs used to full body weight and to build up nicely to the London Triathlon (my “A” race) at the end of July. But in one quick second, that plan was ripped up.
Being injury prone means that I have learned that doing something like an ankle roll isn’t game over – but it requires adjustment. I did my best to adjust my activities to my situation. Of course, it probably would have been best to give the day of service at MA’O Farms a miss – but I didn’t.
See me peeking out from behind Wendy, just on the left? On the right are my friends Neige and Auli’i. Yes, we all got together for a day of weeding the red oak lettuce beds at MA’O Farms. It was an amazing day, and what a great local social enterprise… A story for another blog post!
Anyway, I probably shouldn’t have been on my feet as much as I was that first week, after injuring my ankle. But I tried to be sensible. To keep my ankle wrapped to prevent further rolling (so easy to do in a weakened state) and also to ice and elevate in the evenings.
But just because you have an injury in one area doesn’t mean that exercise in all areas has to stop. Instead of running, I went swimming. I kept my leg wrapped and did very little kicking. I did some gentle cycling, again with my ankle wrapped to keep it stable. And I used the G-Trainer Alter-G anti-gravity treadmill.
Check out that view – a G-Trainer looking out at palm trees and the ocean!
Yes, even on holidays I found and used a G-Trainer. The Alter-G website has a listing of all G-Trainers in the US which makes it really easy to continue to train with this great device while away from home.
I’ve been using the G-Trainer at Balance Physiotherapy in London as a complement to my rehabilitation from knee issues I experienced at the start of the year. In essence, when you run on the G-Trainer, you zip into an air tight plastic bag encased treadmill. The system then uses air pressure to offload body weight, enabling a person to run at a lighter pecentage of body weight and reducing the load on joints. I have steadily upped my body weight from my initial level in February, when I started running again for 20 minutes at 10% of my body weight. Note: 10% of body weight on the G-Trainer is wedgie inducing!
I am now up to about 40 minutes at 70% body weight. Before my latest injury, I was doing one G-Trainer run a week, complemented by two short full body weight outdoor runs (like 1-2km of running – like I said, short, but working on getting my body used to loading). But post ankle roll, I’ve changed it up, to accommodate the injury, rebuild quickly, and train smartly. I am doing 2 G-Trainer runs a week at 70% body weight, focused on building endurance, and then complementing this with one shorter outdoor run a week.
Anyway, my point is that injury doesn’t need to mean an end to activity. Modify, and find tools and people to help you to modify your training. Get creative. And don’t get down. Readjust your goals if you need to. But don’t give up. And speaking of that, I guess my goal for my upcoming races will look a lot different now. But I haven’t started to think that through with my coach Russ yet. A few more weeks of training to see how things progress, then time for revisiting goal setting…
A few brave souls asked to see the photo of what exactly my ankle looked like. Well, it wouldn’t be a triathlon blog without this type of photo.
According to my physiotherapist Ellis the reason for the bruising is that I likely tore or strained my peroneal muscle. This is not great for me, as I already have a weak peroneal group as it is one of the first muscle groups to atrophy from CMT. Thankfully all the discolouration disappeared after about a week and a half, and after about two weeks I felt good enough to start loading my ankle again (which I did at first on the bike). Three weeks after and I was running again. And all is looking good. I am using some K-Tape to give the peroneal a bit of extra support. But that’s about all I’m doing differently at the moment. That – and making sure I am well rested – because I get injured when I am tired and I DO NOT WANT another injury before the end of July!
The capacity of the body to heal and rebound from injury constantly amazes me…