Recognising Injury

Sunday, Horseshoe lake

The lower half of my left leg lit up with white sheets of pain as my foot buckled under my ankle at an impossible angle. Somehow, I managed to keep my balance, as I flung my arms out and half hopped to a halt. It immediately felt bad – but I wasn’t sure whether to fall to the ground and abandon the run or try to run it off.

I was working some transition practice with Chris as he got ready for his first triathlon – I’d left our makeship T2 a little ahead of him and having looked back while I drifted slightly to the left, I was busy posing for the camera as I slipped off the raised wooden path edge into a dip in the grass.

The first few paces were touch and go, then the first 100m was painful, but gradually the pain settled until, as we looped back into the watersports center I’d almost forgotten all about it.

Monday, Head Office

Mondays always seem to be racing around the office at 120% these days, anyone notice that?

Tuesday, Head Office

That’s weird. My ankle’s a bit stiff – I wonder why? It’s not like I ran far at the weekend, we had Chris Vikki and Charli over, so I wasn’t actually racing. I’m sure it’ll be fine tomorrow. I’ll do some stretching later. Maybe. If I’m being honest, I might ‘forget’ about doing stretches.

Wednesday, London

Holy cow. My ankle is really hot and swollen, it’s weird and purply, I can barely walk, and I’m really annoying everyone else trying to make their way through rush hour London. Sorry guys – I just can’t go any faster. I probably should have cancelled all my meetings but I couldnt work out what I’ve done that would cause this level of problem. Hang on – what about that near fall at the lake on Sunday? Oh Balls…

Friday, Home

Still can’t walk properly. I’ve got two races this weekend I really don’t want to miss. An OCR race with my family, who support me incredibly throughout the year and who I really don’t want to let down, and a brilliant Olympic in the Cotswolds with Jane which we’ve been working towards together.

I posted an hour ago on my triclub FB page asking anyone who’s had a similar injury how long it took to recover. It was a fascinating insight into the psychology of triathletes when every single response ignored the question and instead chose to answer as if I’d actually asked ‘Should I compete this weekend’. To be fair, that was the question I very carefully wasn’t asking as I thought I knew what the answer would be; it’s disturbing how transparent and predictable triatheletes appear to be.

The responses could basically be summarised as:

• Two of ‘What would you tell someone if it wasn’t you?’
• Three of ‘You’ll miss more if you push it.’
• Three of ‘Ah, gwan, it’ll be fine (if you take enough painkillers).’
• Two of ‘Just do the swim/bike on the tri, leave the trainers at home.’
• Two of ‘Go see a doctor and get an x-ray.’
• One of ‘No. Just No.’

There’s so much range there I could justify about any choice I want to make. I’ve decided to keep applying Ibuprofen gel and see how I am in the morning. Deferring the decision seems like a much better option than making a choice that might be wrong, and I’m sure I’m much better than I was this morning.

Saturday, Windsor Race Course

I’ve made it to the racecourse. Jo’s spent the morning watching me hobble around the house telling me she’s not sure I’m up to this. I’ve been telling her the limp is me mostly trying to protect the almost completely better ligaments. Even I don’t believe what I’m saying. I’m hoping the ankle will loosen up. If it does and I can get through today, I can probably get through the tri tomorrow as well, and if I haven’t knackered myself long term, then that’s a win, isn’t it? I know I’ve got my first ‘A’ race in two weeks, but hey, I feel like I’m pretty much back to normal. Ish. If I can just stretch a bit.

As I try to stretch I finally have to concede that I’m just physically not able to do this, and I risk completely wrecking some big events this season that are coming up fast. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief as I finally admit reality and the instant and dramatic reduction in pain as I take my trainers off makes me realise just how dumb and pigheaded I was being. I grab photos and cheer Dom and Jo on as they start their race then fire up my phone looking for a deferral process for the triathlon.

Sunday, Home

I’ve spent the entire day in bed. I’ve had ice packs on my ankle and it’s been elevated all day. I’m pretty sure it’s much better than it was this morning. I reckon it’ll be right by the morning. I hope.

I know I’m terrible at recognising injury – It’s so hard to give up on something you’ve been training for for months, but as soon as the decision was made I knew it was the right one. With perfect hindsight I’m really cross at myself for taking so long to make it – AGAIN – I knew on Wednesday that there was something seriously wrong and ignoring it was not going to help get it sorted

There may have already been a point where you’ve struggled with recognising injury and you know just how hard it is, but if not there’s one coming. I’ve tried to ignore problems two years running now but at least this year sense kicked in before I did long term damage. I hope.

When it happens to you make sure you protect the rest of the season and get sorted no matter how strong the temptation is to just keep going. Don’t ask your triathlete friends what to do because it’s a self selecting population of pig headed individuals who don’t know how to give up and if they can’t feel the pain they’ll assume you can bull your way through it.

The first picture in this article, if you zoom in, shows my ankle at an crazy angle but I’m smiling because – like a diplodocus – the pain signals haven’t hit my brain yet. The picture below is about a second later, when everything has had the decency to catch up.

Fortunately, I’ve still got two weeks to sort myself out, and did no further damage today. It could have been a lot worse…

(Thanks Vikki for the photos… :-))