Running “Smart” Isn’t Always Fun.

by 27 Comments

Thursday: Rest

Friday: Rest

Saturday: Color Me Rad 5k

To make this long story and day short, my ankle isn’t feeling any better. It was feeling on and off throughout this easy, shake out run, but afterward i noticed it was swollen and painful. I made the decision late today to play it smart and safe (even though there were tears and a lot of back n’ forth) that i’m not running the marathon tomorrow. I had a hard time making it though the  Color Me Rad 5k, i couldn’t even comprehend going another 23 miles.

I wanted to elaborate on this just a smidge before I head back to my icing, compression, and wine. Yes that’s what I prescribed myself.

20140503_181151

This ankle pain–which is in my Achilles tendon btw–is a new pain. This isn’t something I hid from you guys, or trained on and ignored. I don’t feel like I’ve overtrained or overused this, however I have complained about tight calves for some time, which i think may have contributed. But the sharp pain and swelling is new and happened just last week. As soon as i noticed something was up, i took 2 complete rest days, tested it today and not much has changed. I’m still in pain.

I’ve seen way too many runners injured by ignoring symptoms (hello, i did this a few years ago) and too many times, runners just push themselves into big injuries. There is a big difference in muscle soreness and actual pain. Knowing the difference helped make my decision a lot easier even when I had to fight with my inner self –who wanted to run and was soooo ready to run!–and tell myself that one race wasn’t worth the risk of being injured for weeks or months.

Talking it out with a few friends (thanks Lauren & Emmeline!) helped me realize i was being smart about this. The best decisions aren’t always the easiest and this was a miserably hard one. My goal for this race was to complete this marathon comfortably—which won’t happen with my ankle the way it is. There’s always another race, tomorrow is another day.

scarlet-ohara

pretty much what I looked like today.

I don’t have any good questions today, tell me something positive cause I can’t handle sympathy comments 😦

Also- you guys make everything awesome. i was really pumped up from all the support and comments, i can’t wait to make everyone proud!

Author: She's Going the Distance

Runner!

27 thoughts on “Running “Smart” Isn’t Always Fun.”

Leave a comment

  1. Chris Lopez
    05/03/2014 at 7:36 PM

    Batman and the Pink Ranger make an awfully cute couple!

    Reply
  2. Lisa @ Running Out Of Wine
    05/03/2014 at 8:43 PM

    You’re very smart…of course your wedding is more important than any race! Wine is the best initial treatment for any injury:)

    Reply
  3. txa1265
    05/03/2014 at 11:59 PM

    You two look freaking awesome! Love the shades and the spray colors!

    And as to why RICE doesn’t include W … it is implied, like ‘of COURSE there is wine, duh!?!’

    Good stuff? Both kids found great deals shopping today, one of my Mother’s Day gifts for my wife arrived from Amazon (Garmin Vivofit, shhh!), and my younger son had a sorta-date today impromptu, which was really cool. Oh, and Lisa and I got to have some nice wine together.

    Reply
  4. Billy
    05/04/2014 at 8:05 AM

    Isn’t marathon training by definition overtraining? The only thing the human body is designed to do more than hour a day is walk, sleep, and breathe. I’m really sorry you couldn’t run; I know how pumped you were.

    My sister had a similar incident before her last race and it turned out to be the posterior tibial tendon which is very close to the Achilles. Are you going to see your sports doc?

    Reply
    • she's going the distance
      05/04/2014 at 10:06 AM

      i’m gonna see him Wednesday morning– and yeah you’re right it’s some sort of over training injury, it’s just tough to deal with cause it literally came out of the blue. I think that’s the most frustrating thing.

      Reply
  5. Megan (The Lyons' Share)
    05/04/2014 at 11:04 AM

    Aww, girl, my heart is breaking for you. You are SO, SO smart, and I admire your decision to listen to your body. You won’t regret it when you feel great at your wedding, and yes, there will always be another race. You may remember that I started to get crazy calf tightness in January, after years of never having calf issues. It was down near the achilles, like yours, and almost ended up with some “clicking” when I went downstairs, or an occasional feeling like my entire calf was going to seize up. I constantly felt like it was tight and couldn’t stretch it out, and have reduced my mileage, ice, compression, (wine!), etc. … these all got it under control but it was never perfect. I just changed shoes last week (I wore Asics for 10 years but when they changed the model I could tell something wasn’t quite right), and that + a combination of acupuncture (my first try!) and massage was very helpful. I’m crossing my fingers that you find a solution that works for you, too!!!

    Reply
    • she's going the distance
      05/04/2014 at 11:08 AM

      Thanks for sharing, it does make me feel a lot better. I’m finding that it’s not my achilles like i thought, its actually alongside the ankle.. so i hopefully i’ll find out what’s going on later this week. I’m just praying it’s not something that requires a surgery or something–the internet is a scary place to figure out what’s wrong.

      Reply
    • txa1265
      05/04/2014 at 11:25 AM

      I just saw those acupuncture pics on Instagram … ugh! Sorry you are going through this – crap! 😦

      What are you doing for shoes now? Did you write about it and I missed it?

      Reply

  6. Pingback: Sunday Smoothie Sharing – my 67.5 mile Week, Six Things and Breakfast and Dessert Smoothies | Running Around the Bend

  7. Kristina
    05/04/2014 at 4:20 PM

    So smart!

    To use a Harry Potter reference, Dumbledore once said that there comes a time when we have to choose between what is right and what is easy. It would have been so easy to convince yourself running the marathon was a good idea, but you did the right thing 🙂 #NerdWisdom

    Reply
  8. Michele @ PaleoRunningMomma
    05/04/2014 at 4:33 PM

    I had posterior tibial tendinitis which is alongside the inner ankle, from right above the ankle bone down to around the arch of the foot. For me it was a combination of too-minimal shoes and possibly too many miles (I was marathon training). I actually ran the marathon with it out of stubbornness and I may still be traumatized from that pain! I had to completely stop running for two months after that marathon, wear inserts and shoes to prevent pronation. I just ran Boston and it’s better now, but it took 3-4 months to really heal.

    Just wanted to reach out since it’s so fresh in my mind! Not sure if it’s similar to what you’re dealing with, hopefully you can figure it out soon and get a plan in place to recover!

    Reply
  9. runsaltrun
    05/05/2014 at 9:42 AM

    You guys are SO ADORABLE. I’m just going to say that I think you are being SO smart about the whole thing. There will be other races and you are going to rock them. 🙂

    Peroneal tendonitis is what I dealt with earlier this year and to some degree still deal with a little bit, but new shoes and lots of tape help it. It was originally caused by the shoes I was wearing before. From the initial flare up in February (I was running a half at the time), it got better relatively quickly with rest and ice. I kept to the exercise bike for about a month. I hope you feel better so fast.

    Reply
  10. Crosscoutry02 (@crosscoutry02)
    05/05/2014 at 11:29 AM

    I love your 5k picture! This is something I have been meaning to do, but have yet to commit. I got tendonitis my senior year of college from walking on concrete sidewalks, bad flooring, and (believe it or not) tap dancing (beginning – I am not that great!). Since then, I have become the calf muscle stretching fanatic, but I sure wish the I had been smart and cancelled a race in 2009, when I had not trained well.

    Good for you and WRICE is now on my list of ways to recover. Hoping for good news from the Sports Doc. Feel better soon!

    Reply
  11. The running schlub
    05/05/2014 at 12:16 PM

    Fun run looked just that but I’m sorry to hear about your injury. Not too much sympathy here but you made the right choice with the marathon.

    Hope things go well at the Dr and keep us posted.

    Reply
  12. irenejean
    05/05/2014 at 2:09 PM

    Very smart of you to not run the marathon, but I understand how it stinks! It’s far better to rest for a couple weeks and recover from a small injury than taking months off to recover from a major one. I hope you get good news from the doctor this week!

    Reply
  13. Olive To Run (@Olivetorun)
    05/06/2014 at 9:57 AM

    Obviously you’re making the right choice… I think it’s better to have a healthy body than to push yourself so hard you end up in an even worse situation later on. Keep rockin’ girl.

    Reply

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