Is it just my imagination? Does it happen to anyone else? What is it with the correlation between getting close to your expected race date and injury.
For the past 5 days I have felt a slight unsteady feeling in my ankle. Monday, I got to go on my run anyway and the unsteady feeling went away during the run only to return later on in the day. Yesterday I swam so I really did not feel my ankle much, but during the day I felt the same unsteady feeling.
Today I couldn't even get in a short run, I am having some pain in my ankle.
Now I am wearing a sport brace and hoping that I can get in some running next wee.
Is it over training, or coincidence that injuries tend to happen right before a race. I was looking over my favorite blogs lately and read that the Kahuna re-injured his calf. Out of nowhere, boom, lame. I hope he can work through it. Florida is around the corner for him. I hope I can work mine out - Rim Rock is less than 3 weeks out for me.
It would be different if I could look back and say - I know when the injury occurred. But, hell, nothing happened. It just started feeling a little unsteady. My shoes are still in real good shape. I have no knee or leg pain. My times have been getting better and better. It's just not fair.
So, instead of running as planned this morning. I got to the gym and worked on weight training, abdominal work and about 30 minutes of spinning. I feel guilty as hell for not getting in my 6 miles this morning. that is my obsessive compulsive self talking. I am now wearing a sports splint on my ankle from my doctor. I will give my ankle another day of rest before trying to run again. Life is great, life is good, but ankle injuries really suck. |
It is true, injury always seems to sneek up on you right before a race. My take on the issue, your training is usually at it's peak volume two to three weeks out from a race and this is when your body is at its max level of fatigue. It is time to be careful and conservative, missing a workout or two will not result in a loss of fitness whereas injury can result in the loss of a race or even a season.
The other weird thing that happens to me and to a lot of others is all the nagging achs and pains that start hitting during the taper up to a long-distance event. The body does strange things in recovery.