Hiccup

It pains me to write this, but no more than the pain I felt which caused me to miss my third training run this year. Let me just get it out there before getting to the details:

THIS SUCKS ASS!!!

Alright, now I feel a bit better. I already noted how my Friday run was not exactly of the "fun" variety. It continued on a downward spiral all the way through the weekend.

The culprit is my wonky right ankle. Specifically it is the peroneal tendons of the wonky right ankle. They were damaged way back when and now flop around like laundry drying in a cool summer breeze, snapping over the protrusion at the bottom of the tibula on the outside of the leg. Nothing there to hold them in place so they act up sometimes. Several reasons may account for why this has happened on this particular occasion:

1. Increased mileage.
2. Shoes that are nearing the 500 mile mark.
3. Elimination of running to and from work, which makes each run that much longer on average. (I used to run about 6km to work and about 9km back home, but now I've been getting up early and just running 15km before breakfast.)
4. And lastly, the theory that swimmers were really not meant to run.

That last one I'm trying to prove wrong, but I think the others may have increased my chances of wonkiness.

Anyway, here's how things went down this weekend. I had a decent upper body weight workout at the gym in the afternoon on Friday and sort of hoped for the best with the ankle throughout the day. We drove to London, Ontario that evening for Owen's baseball tournament and my ankle was even worse by the time we arrived at the hotel at about 9pm.

The next day was spent almost entirely at the diamonds coaching three games and pretty much standing up the entire time. It was hot, the ground was hard, the kids played almost as hard as the ground, and my ankle hurt like a mofo. By mid afternoon I was already mentally readying myself for missing my Sunday morning long run. By the time I got to bed at about 11pm it was all she wrote and I didn't even bother setting the alarm.

Sunday was spent driving south to Lake Erie and checking out Port Stanley and such with the kids. I tried to keep my walking around to a minimum, but each step continued to be a source of pain. I really really hate missing training of any sort, and missing a long run when you are training for a marathon hurts more than anything else (other than the ankle that is).

So, today my ankle seems a bit better, but it is early in the day. I am now going to juggle my training plan a little and move next week's planned recovery mileage to this week. This will allow me a bit more rest and hopefully let me get back to higher mileage faster. Also, I am guessing that I should plan the longest of my training run to be immediately followed by a recovery week. I think that doing my first ever 30km run and then trying to keep the mileage up for two more weeks was a mistake. Live and learn.

Anyway, here's hoping that this is just a "hiccup" and not a "setback".