If its not one thing, its another.
The story: feeling all good during the XTERRA East Championship, coming out of the water onto to the bike, trying to pass in the first couple of miles and onto the narrow concrete bridge where the racer in front of me, hesitates, backs up, and I quickly stop in back of him... I clipped out from the left foot (habit) and put the foot down to completely stop myself before I fall over the bridge. (bridge has no sides, no rails, etc...) My foot doesn't grab onto anything except the air for about 3-4 ft, then onto a decomposed pile of leaves & soft dirt, sounds like a great place to land right?...apparently my head knocked on a log on the way down... and my injury occurred on the medial side of my ankle... because the foot was still looking for some surface to catch. Felt every tendon and ligament stretch in my ankle so that the sole of my shoe could face the clouds. The volunteers asked me if I could move it?... "NO!!...can you stand on it?..."NO!" they called the EMT ....it will take them about 10mins to get here... I need pain relief right now (but I remember at a MASS race, I was laying on the ground for about 5 mins because my back seized and was in spasms that kept me from moving forward, and the race folk just looked at me like I had 3 heads.. at least in XTERRA they asked me questions). I started asking myself some questions...1st question: How am I going to work this week with my event? 2nd question: Am I a DNF? 3rd question: what am I going to do with all the calories I consumed for this race? Answer: keep moving forward until you can't anymore.
There was a woman, Dawn, with her daughter there, cheering on husband/dad. Dawn was great. She helped me out with ice water, even a wet one. Then after about ten minutes of elevating it... I surprising felt like I could walk on it... I did.. they asked me if I wanted to finish the ride, I was worried about the 10k that followed. I decided to get back on the horse and ride until the pain would not let me move forward. I rode the rest of the course and the worst part was trying to clip in and out... and hike with the bike in certain sections. I transitioned into the run, and again... lets see how far I can go...I finished. I even beat my run time from last year by 3mins. During the run I was amazed...and thought how the heck can I do this? Maybe the celebrex I was taking the few days prior for my back spasms helped with it. Maybe my genetics of good ankle flexibility helped with it. Maybe the adrenaline? Maybe because I took all the pressure off of myself and decided to "just finsh" kept me light on the feet. A runner in front of me heard tell someone that I flipped my ankle pretty good, and as I passed him he said "you're still kicking my ass with a twisted ankle" I shouted out to him... yeah, but I am sure you will be walking normal tomorrow!
Well its tomorrow, and I am walking with a boot & a hobble... but the doc said no broken bones, just some partially torn ligaments...and to take it week by week at this point.
What a season.
