On injuries and rehab

"You should run the Frank's series! It's so much fun!"
"Frank's is awesome, and SO hard!"
"If you want to get fit fast in May, run Frank's"

The Frank McNamara cross country series is a 5 week event that begins end of april/early may and features a different 5-7 km race every Wednesday night in Edmonton's river valley. They also have a fall series but that's another blog. This race started off relatively small, i'm pretty sure the first thing I heard about it was "don't talk about it, it's too awesome." When I showed up on that first Wednesday and had a hard time finding my friend Lisa I was like, 'DAAAAYYYYYUUUUMMM'

I had ran the 10 miler just days before, did a closing shift at the clinic Tuesday and opening shift at the clinic Wednesday. I was tired. My brain, my legs, everything...just tired. I also had no idea how to get to the race site by car. I knew EXACTLY where it was by bike! I was also running a bit behind, in a last stitch attempt to know where I was headed I printed a google map, which made me leave even later than I already was and I was grumpy the whole drive there. In hind sight, I should have just stayed home and rested.

Wanting to get the most out of my 10$ race entry fee, I lined up near the front with Lisa and a bunch of other wicked-fast people, knowing i'd end up somewhere behind them, but not behind ALL the slow people. (Who, BTW, ended up passing me anyways)
The race began and we all took off (what seemed like 500 of us) and I found my legs moving fast...like 4min/km fast. We hit the hills and I began to zone out, just keep this up and the race will be over soon...my race was over soon...exactly 9min and 21 sec into the race. I rolled over on my left ankle.

FLASHBACK: July 8, 2012 I was running on a ridiculously hot day on the trails around my parents cottage and I rolled my ankle as I descended a hill. I fell in the process and ended up in emerg shortly after to find out if my left ankle was broken. It was badly sprained. 6 weeks of no running. But I came back and ran the Grizzly ultra as a team with my husband that October. FLASHBACK over.

Back to Frank's. This time I didn't fall. I stopped myself and stood there. FUCK. (Apologies but I had no other words in my head) I knew, I just knew EXACTLY what had just happened. I stood there, off to the side of a single track trail and saw my whole summer of racing and training slip away. Several people I knew passed me and a ton of people asked me if I was ok "yep" was all I could manage. NO, I was NOT OK! I fought back tears and walk/gimped/limped my way back to the finish area. It actually felt ok to walk around a bit, maybe, just maybe....maybe it wasn't SO bad.

Once in my car, I messaged my husband to make me up an ice bath (please) for when I got home. I made it into the house ok but when I saw him in the kitchen and he asked me 'what happened?' I lost it. He helped my messy self onto the couch and foot into the icy water...it hurt. It hurt so badly I could barely stand it.

 

 

I threw a compression sock on and went to bed, hoping it was all a bad dream and I'd jump out of bed and be back to normal. It wasn't. I crutched to work the next day, knowing my road back to running would be long. Luckily, I have some awesome Physio's at my place of employment. One of them immediately threw a couple pieces of Leukotape around my ankle and it stabilized enough that I could one-crutch it almost instantly. I swam, well...I pulled. I pulled a lot of meters in the first couple days. I was determined to keep some respectable level of fitness.

Over the course of the first week I found out a couple things...1. I had good strength in my joint. 2. I had bad range of motion (ROM) and 3. I had a lack of balance. (possibly why it rolled). I set to work on my rehab program with more determination than I've ever had in the past with any other injury. The truth is, I was panicked. With races coming up  faster than I was healing all I could think about was the lack of volume I was doing.

 

There were many tears, many calf raises, calf stretches, balance drills, water runs and many many meters of pull...but finally I was able to start my 'return to run' program...30 sec of running with 2 min walking, repeat 5 times. It felt weird, really wrong...but I did it. I expected to be an over achiever in this plan and just be back running straight for 30 min in 8 days (in an absolutely perfect rehab run program). Of course that wasn't the case. I had aches and pains and swelling and a lack of mobility...I had to re-prioritize my training. If I had a bike ride planned, I couldn't do a rehab run...it was just too much. I couldn't run after work, my ankle would be too tired. I poured my heart out to my coach and massage therapist, I worked hard in all my rehab exercises...and finally it happened. I felt like my ankle was ready...I decided to run until my body told me to stop. When it did, I stretched, I walked and started to run again when I was ready...I made it 40 min. I was elated. It wasn't fast by any means...but it meant I was moving forward in the plan (and could warrant wearing my Garmin again).

 

I'm up to about an hour now but the road ahead remains long. There's still a mobility issue, my tendons are re-learning how to be tendons again, my hamstring is ridiculously tight, my swim kick is still sub-par but my heart is full knowing that I have this amazing team of rehab practitioners behind me, pushing me forward, towards my goals...

St Albert Road Race: race report

So it was NOT in my plan to run the 10 miler this year...the weather can always be hit and miss, it's rolling hills and a lot of REALLY fast people usually race it. BUT I was chatting with my friend Lisa on the last possible day to register for this event and the conversation went like this:

L: are you running the 10 miler?
J: No, not this year.
L: well, what are you doing on sunday?
J: running long
L: how long?
J: about 1:30
L: so about 10 miles?
J: ok i'll sign up. PS. you just cost me 70$
L: see you sunday!

I signed up thinking I would just go out and run hard and have a good time. The course was going in the reverse direction from what I had ran it in the past so that was going to be new and exciting...and I knew I wouldn't have to deal with a horrible uphill 5km loop at the end of the race.

Race day: beautiful running weather, +10, sunshine, no wind...perfect for a spring race.

I met up with Lisa before the race, hugged it out, did the bathroom routine, then went our separate ways for warm up. She actually had a plan for race day as she was training for the Vancouver Marathon so I left her to it and put my tunes on for an easy jog and some ABCD drills in the parking lot. We met up just before the race start for a picture (see below) and a last minute "am I dressed too warm? Should I lose this?" conversation. We re-assured each other, hugged, and said, "catch you on the flip"

 

 

My race was relatively uneventful. I ran as hard as I thought I could given the terrain and how my body felt. Mostly, it felt calm and comfortable...not so comfortable that I wasn't pushing hard...but no indication of IT band or piriformis pain. (Turns out, racing in warm weather is kinda my thing)

 

My wonderful race Sherpa (I mean, husband) was on standby for pics and general Sherpa-ing. Turns out Lisa really did dress too warm and needed to ditch her beautiful Team Betty vest (seen above). That's what a good race Sherpa is for...collecting pretty clothes from sweaty friends. I have to give Colin kudos for this picture...the elusive 2 feet off the ground run pic...only to be ruined by some dude. Might I add that I look super relaxed after the first 5km?

 

 

As I said before, the whole race felt great, there were some poorly placed signs for the 10km that made me feel like I was way off the mark with my pacing and how I should be feeling at this point in the race but I was reassured by garmin that I was right where I needed to be. The last 2 km or so was relatively downhill into downtown St Albert and I began to push...hard enough that I needed a few minutes at the finish to make sure I wouldn't fall over. And then it was done.

 

 

Minutes earlier...a lot of minutes earlier...my speedy friend killed it and it looked something like this:

 

 

And then she went to Vancouver and got herself a BQ. On her birthday. (CONGRATS GIRL!)

 

I'm glad I ran this race because it was a huge confidence builder for me, I had battled some interesting niggles this winter and I'm relieved those are behind me.

 

*sidenote: 3 days after this race I sprained my ankle badly during a cross country race I had no business doing as I was SO fatigued after the 10 miler...but that's another blog*