was going to happen eventually
Mar. 30th, 2011 04:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seventheYup: I hurt myself running.
Side note #1: I don't often have to think about or deal with injuries. This isn't because I am some boss physical specimen - I am the opposite, really; it's more because my lungs usually stress out and die long before my body> does. And not that I like having asthma attacks - spoiler: THEY AREN'T MUCH FUN - but again, they trigger far before my legs tire out or my feet start hurting.
Side note #2: I have one and a half bad ankles. When I was a senior in high school* - over a decade ago** - I tore a large ligament in my right ankle. Ligaments don't heal themselves. Shortly after, as my poor ankle was unused to operating weak, I tore a couple smaller ones. In the year or so after, still getting used to my wonky ankle, I tore some of the small ones in my left ankle. They're better, and I haven't badly hurt myself since the time in college I tripped while walking to class and passed out from the pain (no, really, I woke up in my bed in my dorm room and couldn't move for 4 hours because it hurt so badly I was puking everywhere). But I still lack a lot of proper ligaments, and so whenever I step/trip funny enough, it tugs on one of the few remaining ones and, you know, hurts pretty badly, because they're all overworked and pretty angry at me for what I've put them through. (It's cool. My body and I fight like this a lot.)
If you read the last running entry, you'll notice that I jacked my ankle - the half-bad one, not the real-bad one - during Sunday's run. Well, apparently when I did so I adjusted my stride -- not a bad idea; running through the sharp pain will help stretch the ligament out, if I can do it. But apparently whatever I did has come back to bite me in the ass.
During yesterday's run I noticed that my calves were really tight. Okay, I said; instead of doing the fast miles I was planning on, I'll just do some slow miles and run it out, stretch it out at a slower pace, right? Wrong. By the time I was on mile 3 I was limping. My left lower calf muscle/back ankle was(/is) so tight I couldn't even really walk on it. I got off the treadmill and finished the last bit on the (world's smallest) track the gym has on the upper level, thinking maybe something about my stride on the treadmill was being a jerk. Fast, slow, didn't matter: running wasn't helping, and stretching wasn't helping either.
By the time I got home I was so gimpy I kind of threw myself towards the fridge, obtained a bag of ice, and tossed my body onto the couch for a bit of icing it. With some icing, a warm shower, more stretching, and a lot of rest, I got it to the point where it just 'hurts' today rather than 'feels stabbed with knives'.
But it does mean I'm probably skipping yoga today and dropping both the mileage and the speed on this week's target workout. I can't afford to take a week off but I really can't afford to get hurt this close to the half marathon. Hopefully it's just something tight that I can eventually work out, because I really wanted to do 10 miles this Sunday.
Any runners have experience with stuff like this?
*I spent most of my senior year of high school in a wheelchair or on crutches, between this injury and the massive set of foot surgeries I had to have due to my broken and nonexistent immune system.
**My sweet heaven, I am old.
Side note #1: I don't often have to think about or deal with injuries. This isn't because I am some boss physical specimen - I am the opposite, really; it's more because my lungs usually stress out and die long before my body> does. And not that I like having asthma attacks - spoiler: THEY AREN'T MUCH FUN - but again, they trigger far before my legs tire out or my feet start hurting.
Side note #2: I have one and a half bad ankles. When I was a senior in high school* - over a decade ago** - I tore a large ligament in my right ankle. Ligaments don't heal themselves. Shortly after, as my poor ankle was unused to operating weak, I tore a couple smaller ones. In the year or so after, still getting used to my wonky ankle, I tore some of the small ones in my left ankle. They're better, and I haven't badly hurt myself since the time in college I tripped while walking to class and passed out from the pain (no, really, I woke up in my bed in my dorm room and couldn't move for 4 hours because it hurt so badly I was puking everywhere). But I still lack a lot of proper ligaments, and so whenever I step/trip funny enough, it tugs on one of the few remaining ones and, you know, hurts pretty badly, because they're all overworked and pretty angry at me for what I've put them through. (It's cool. My body and I fight like this a lot.)
If you read the last running entry, you'll notice that I jacked my ankle - the half-bad one, not the real-bad one - during Sunday's run. Well, apparently when I did so I adjusted my stride -- not a bad idea; running through the sharp pain will help stretch the ligament out, if I can do it. But apparently whatever I did has come back to bite me in the ass.
During yesterday's run I noticed that my calves were really tight. Okay, I said; instead of doing the fast miles I was planning on, I'll just do some slow miles and run it out, stretch it out at a slower pace, right? Wrong. By the time I was on mile 3 I was limping. My left lower calf muscle/back ankle was(/is) so tight I couldn't even really walk on it. I got off the treadmill and finished the last bit on the (world's smallest) track the gym has on the upper level, thinking maybe something about my stride on the treadmill was being a jerk. Fast, slow, didn't matter: running wasn't helping, and stretching wasn't helping either.
By the time I got home I was so gimpy I kind of threw myself towards the fridge, obtained a bag of ice, and tossed my body onto the couch for a bit of icing it. With some icing, a warm shower, more stretching, and a lot of rest, I got it to the point where it just 'hurts' today rather than 'feels stabbed with knives'.
But it does mean I'm probably skipping yoga today and dropping both the mileage and the speed on this week's target workout. I can't afford to take a week off but I really can't afford to get hurt this close to the half marathon. Hopefully it's just something tight that I can eventually work out, because I really wanted to do 10 miles this Sunday.
Any runners have experience with stuff like this?
*I spent most of my senior year of high school in a wheelchair or on crutches, between this injury and the massive set of foot surgeries I had to have due to my broken and nonexistent immune system.
**My sweet heaven, I am old.
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no subject
Date: 2011-03-30 10:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-31 02:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-31 02:09 pm (UTC)Okay, I am so not a runner in any form? But I walk my ass off and spend half the summer hiking on trails that make seasoned boy scouts cry. I have an utterly gimp ankle and a half gimp knee and elbow (the ankle being from 6th grade when the biggest kid in our grade totally bowled me over in the hall to get to lunch--ass. See, I don't even have decent war stories about my injuries -_-).
You might alternate keeping it iced with heated? The ice does help inflammation, but if you can stand it, the heat will encourage more circulation to the area and speed body tissue regrouping/recovery depending on precisely what happened. I definitely don't think, if it's down to "just" stiff as hell and hurting, that you should completely stay off of it, but backing off a bit is probably a good idea. Other than that, my only secrets are totally not secrets and the most basic things ever that you probably already do: sport tape and Ace bandages (I look like a mummy or a reject science project half the time). I've made up plasters and poultices for the boys who, omg, are just DYING when they get injured, but honestly? It's more to cure their whining than anything. Because, yeah, some of that stuff doesn't heal, you just re-adjust. 8|
Best of luck, that sucks. *hugs*
no subject
Date: 2011-03-31 12:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-31 04:36 pm (UTC)But I can say I sympathize with oneself and one's body having a mutual hatred for each other.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-31 05:43 pm (UTC)I think you're just going to have to rest your ankle for a while. If you have time in your schedule to make a Spinning class at your gym, I find it to be excellent cross-training for running, and it doesn't put any stress on your joints.
I hope it stops hurting soon!