I ran! THREE MILES!

So it appears my ankle is getting better. I talked with 3 people about it last weekend at the Waconia Triathlon.

First I chatted with someone at a "Sports Med" tent. I told her my entire story starting last August, but quickly fast-forwarding to April when I badly sprained my ankle. I told her how the inside of my ankle (where the sprain was) feels about 90% better, but when I try to run I have a sharp pain on the top of my foot (like inside the ankle) on toe-off when my foot and leg are making an acute angle.

Then I talked with Heidi Keller-Miler (stud runner and triathlete who finished as the 3rd female at age 49 after hurting her foot/ankle a few weeks before and only ran 2 times in the few weeks leading up to the race) and the sports med person who was currently giving her a post-race stretch. They both had good things to offer.

I don't exactly remember who said what, but here was the gist of talking with these 3 smart ladies: My ankle is probably just fine to run on, but the pain I'm feeling is something that probably got aggravated by limping around (or at least not walking 100% normally) because of my sprain. I maybe have some tendonitis or just an angry tendon inside my foot from walking funny.

The first sports med woman I talked to recommended a new stretch for me (I'd started stretching my ankle to the edge of pain for the last 2-3 weeks, and that was helping - I'm not stretching the SPRAINl; I'm stretching the inner ankle pain). The final woman I talked with recommended coming in to see their team of people (but duh, that's her job while there). If things don't keep progressing in the next 2 weeks, I'll check them out. They set you up with a sports med doc and PTs and Chrios and anyone else you might need.

So, knowing that it wouldn't be horrible to run through a little pain as long as I could keep my form, I ran 1.5 miles straight through on Monday. It didn't really feel any worse from my first step to my last step, and as soon as I stopped running, it felt totally fine again. The next day, it maybe even felt a little BETTER.

Then 3 days later on Thursday, I ran THREE MILES STRAIGHT THROUGH! I did this run on a treadmill just because that was my best option for the day. Again, it felt fine after I finished! And my sacrum / hip didn't act up that night or the next day.

So I'm finally making some progress. If things keep going OK, I hope to do the Waseca Sprint Triathlon in 3 weeks. It has a longer run for a sprint (4.4 miles), but that 3 mile run a few days ago was promising. I'd probably not run more than 4 miles leading up to the race, but then just try to comfortably "get through" the 4.4 miles on race day.

Totally unrelated to all of this: here are 5 photos of my family from the last 24 hours:

Chasing girls around with squirt guns on the 4th. That's my boy.


4th of July sparklers!


A family hike this morning to Shadow Falls.


More from our hike. Henry loves crossing the little bridges.

Off for a ride shortly, an then another run tomorrow!