Milo and the Calf

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Injury Report

The injuries persist and they are starting to really piss me off. The ankle isn’t getting any better. I tested it last week at the gym and after half a mile, the pain came back. The groin is also still tender. I’ve made an appointment with the doctor to look into both of these, but that appointment isn’t going to happen until after the first of the year. I’m worried he is going to say stress fracture and that I need to stay off of it for a long time.

I am hating life right now. I miss running terribly, and, while I am getting to the gym, and doing the concept2 holiday challenge, I’d really like to be back out on the roads. That may not happen for quite some time. I need to face up to that. What to do in the meantime? Get in other types of cardio, that’s for sure – the erg, for now, though it’s boring as hell, and the elliptical. Maybe I’ll even take a spin class or something. Fitness, for now, is going to involve a lot more time in the gym and a lot less time on the roads. I just need to keep relatively aerobically fit and not make the mistake of thinking I can run through these injuries again.

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  1. smt

    Well, welcome to the point after which the most important thing in any of your exercising becomes NEVER GETTING INJURED AGAIN. (Like, more important than any racing goal.) There is nothing worse than having to take a long time off, except…trying to run through it and extending that period of time while making no progress in your training.

    Spinning is AMAZING cardio exercise (and exercise in general) but if you truly have an ankle stress fracture, that seems aggressive. Google it. Regardless of what the doctor says, it might be best to just accept now that you are going to have to take a lot of time off? Also, basically all a doctor can say about a sports injury is: take time off. Diagnosis barely matters. And not just, take time off until it feels kind of okay, but take time off until it is completely pain free AND THEN a few more weeks on top of it. This is a horrible thing to hear, but this way you can at least be like, 6 weeks off minus the three I’ve already taken off — HA!

    When I had my stress fractures (bilateral tibia), I wound up taking close to six months off. It was terrible, esp with my German co-worker reminding me all the time that I was getting a bit pudgy and probably shouldn’t eat the candy bar that I wanted to drown my sorrows in. But there is so much you can do to stay in shape at the gym! Maybe a good time to work on strength work?

    Anyway, I feel for you — it’s hard to explain to non-runners how horrible injury is (they are like, “i mean, does it like, hurt?” “THE MOST INTENSE PSYCHOLOGICAL PAIN EVER.”) — but wow, it just sucks — feeling so powerless. Best of luck for a PR on your recovery!

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  2. seanv2

    Being injured is just SO FUCKING AWFUL. And the fact that I couldn’t just recover from this like I have recovered from things in the past is depressing because it is a sure sign that I am an old, old man. UGH.

    Anyway, I moved the doctors appointment up to the end of December, I’m just going to do the rowing and the elliptical between now and then. The ankle does hurt at all when I do these. I’m hoping the doc is just going to say I have tendonitis or something, but if its a stress fracture, its a stress fracture and I’m probably doomed to lose all the fitness I spent the last year building.

    ARG! Time to turn this blog into “Just the Weight Room”?

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  3. smt

    You are not that old. You will recover from this, and..seriously, you will NOT lose all fitness. It is amazing to me how every time I take major time off from running, including my loss of 6 months to stress fractures and then more recently when I switched to a combo of squash and spinning and then ran kind of casually for two months and ran a 7:02 min/mile 10k w/o even doing speedwork how much miles in the bank don’t actually go away. Going “the distance” also means getting injured and coming back. YOU CAN DO IT!

    Though truly, it is about the worst thing ever. Gripe away, because it sucks.

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