Breaking point

After the highs of my first week of running I would never have thought that within a week I'd be having to end my challenge. This morning however I awoke to find that not only is my left ankle still swollen but it now hurts to walk on it - so I've made the difficult decision to end my Runvember challenge. What can I say, I'm upset, deflated and angry.....

So where did it all go wrong? My Monday night run after work although a struggle and slow felt fine, however Tuesday morning I noticed a pain on the inside of my left ankle. Now I've had problems with both knees in the past but this was new and new pain is never a good thing! I finished my run and didn't think too much of it as walking was fine and I assumed that it was just a niggle. Wednesday morning found me with the same pain only it was a bit stronger so after running I did a quick Google and it sounds like a classic case of tibialis posterior pain. My symptoms fit perfectly and I admit that having gone from 3 or 4 runs a week to running everyday, I certainly fit the bill for overuse. At this point my ankle was slightly swollen so I took some Ibuprofen and iced it. Yesterdays run found me in quite a bit of pain throughout my 6km and again taking anti-inflammatories and applying an ice pack didn't seem to have reduced the swelling on the ankle, plus on my walk home to the train station I could feel a niggling pain in the ankle....not good! I'd ordered an ankle support and some new trainers in the hope that extra support would be my saviour and they had arrived in the afternoon so I thought that it would all be fine for my morning run - little did I know that they wouldn't even make it out of the box.

I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised this morning to find that my ankle is now painful to walk on and still very swollen but I really hate to have to concede to the demands of my ageing, protesting body. In a positive light (and this is the only thing I can think of) I'm hoping that my decision to rest now will mean that in a few days it will be much better and I can start to run again soon rather than running on it now and causing more damage or even rupturing a tendon.... either way I'm left facing failure and wallowing in my own misery. Positivity may prevail in the next post but for now, life sucks!