Ankle Update

On Monday February 22, I had a physiotherapy appointment and we talked again about the lump just above my ankle bone along the tendon. This spot has been where my ankle starts to ache after I work it too much. I asked if she thought it was scar tissue, fluid or something else. She told me that it felt too hard for fluid and too soft for bone and she really didn't know what it was. I stated that I thought I should go back to my doctor and see about getting some kind of scan done so we would know exactly what we were dealing with since I hadn't had any type of internal scan performed on my ankle up to this point. At first I thought this might be futile because whatever scan I went for would likely not be for about a month. I figured it wouldn't hurt to call the doctor again anyway and the sooner the better. So the next day I called and got an appoinment to see the doctor the following day. That night I ran the indoor track with the group and felt pretty good. I pushed it a little harder and felt the soreness creep back a little quicker as I suspected it would do. However, I felt I had done more than the week before and that I was still getting progressive improvement.


The next day the doctor felt the lump on my ankle and said he would send me for a x-ray. I said I thought he was going to send me for an ultra-sound or MRI so that the soft tissue could be looked at. He told me he didn't care about the soft tissue, it was the bone he was more concerned about. When I asked him how long it would be before I could get in for the x-ray I was surprised when he said “right now”. I went into the x-ray office and there were no other patients so they took me right away. The technician took 4 images of my ankle at various angles. As she was taking the last one I asked her how much soft tissue the x-ray would be able to show since it was a tendon injury. She told me it wouldn’t show much soft tissue and then she paused and said “Well you definitely have more than a soft tissue injury.” She then motioned me over to look at the image and I could see even before I got close that there was a fracture across the fibula about 6cm above the ankle joint. I was shocked and felt a little sick in disbelief. She said it was pretty much healed and it looked pretty straight to her. I thanked her and still in some shock I left the office.

On Thursday, the doctor’s office called and referred me to an orthopaedic surgeon. So now I am waiting to set up an appointment with him. It was again another shock that I now have to see an orthopaedic surgeon, after all this time and it not feeling what I imagined a bone fracture would feel like. With my brain now unable to concentrate on anything else, I have been searching online for more information on my situation.

Here are a couple of sites I found interesting.

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=2399885

http://www.sportsinjuryclinic.net/cybertherapist/front/lowerleg/fibula_stress_fracture.htm

http://www.physioadvisor.com.au/8129189/physioadvisor-ankle-pain-ankle-injury-treatmen.htm

More Winter Lessons

As I recover from my strained ankle tendons I realize I have learned the hard way that one of the challenges of barefoot running in the snow is avoiding tendon injury. The problems are dealing with a slippery uneven running surface and keeping the tendons warm enough to have the flexibility to maintain stability on this kind of surface. Part of the solution is to do a good warm-up followed by plenty of stretching of those tendons. I also found it is a good idea to maintain a pace that will keep your feet, ankles and legs warm during the run and not slow down until you are done and somewhere warm. The other part of the solution is to run where there is a clear ice-free surface and preferably no salt.


I believe this injury would have occurred even if I was wearing running shoes, however I understand now that a barefoot runner is going to develop strength and stability in their ankles by the increased demand they put on them, but the flip side to that is when conditions are poor (cold, no stretching and running fast over rough terrain) the increased demand can cause injury to even the strong ankle of a barefoot runner.

Strains can take a longer time to heal than other injuries. It’s been almost two months since I injured my ankle and I still cannot run on it even though I can do moderate walking with no problem. I am seeing my Physiotherapist on a weekly basis and she seems happy with my progress however, I am not planning any races this year at this point.

There are still places along the tendons that are swollen with fluid and causing some discomfort, but it is a lot better than it was. I am currently taking Aleve in the morning and at night to reduce the swelling and wearing a tensor bandage with a foam insert to put pressure on the swollen parts of the tendon. My Physiotherapist said she thought I could try running at the indoor track on Tuesday February 16. The other night I went to the Wellness Centre and tried the Deep Water Running and I found out how much cardio I have lost in the last two months. The Deep Water Running involves wearing a floatation belt, tethering yourself to the wall of the pool as you run suspended in the deep end. It’s a good workout and I plan on doing more of this until I am healed.

3 Races

It’s been a month since the Hamilton Half Marathon and I have decided I will join in with a group of other runners for what seems to me to be a very ambitious schedule. The schedule will include The Peterborough Half Marathon on February 28th, the Around The Bay 30K in Hamilton on March 28th and the Ottawa Marathon.

I now also have some injuries to recover from before I can do any serious training. The ball of my right foot just back of my big toe (called the metatarsophelangeal joint) was giving me discomfort a week or so after the Hamilton Half. I’m not sure if I bruised it or sprained the joint in some way, but the pain was not enough to stop me from running. I would describe it as more of a discomfort and seemed most noticeable when I was walking slowly or resting. I continued to run 2 or 3 times per week as the running conditions began to feel more and more like winter.

On Monday December 7, I drove to the store on time for the pub run. I was looking forward to this one because it had snowed about 5cm late in the day giving us the first fresh snow on the ground of the season. Unfortunately the fresh snow also brought out the Christmas shoppers to the downtown. By the time I got parked the run had started so I decided to run the route in reverse until I met up with the other runners. The temperature was about 1ºC and I started out fast with no warm-up or stretching. I was enjoying the feel of the fresh snow, but my left ankle on the outside felt a bit stiff. By the time I met up with the other runners at about 2 or 3k out and turned to run back with them my ankle was really feeling tight and a little sore. Half way back I had to slow to a walk and by the time I got to within a block of the store I found it painful to even limp.

On Wednesday I saw my family doctor and my massage therapist. It seems I strained a tendon in my ankle (the peroneal tendon, brevis or longus is my guess) no doubt from going too fast without warming up. The massage made it feel a little better. The doctor gave me some anti-inflammatories and I got some adjustments from the chiropractor on Thursday night also. I will be seeing the physiotherapist on Tuesday, so I will have had all the experts involved. I think all there is to do now is to rest it. The added benefit is my right foot is getting some rest too and is feeling better now. With any luck I will be able to get back to some serious training after Christmas and I’ll have to make the final decisions on those races when I have healed up.

Hamilton Half

I was quite relieved when Dave offered to drive me to Hamilton. He was leaving early Sunday morning. I new that meant leaving shortly after 4am, but would allow me to take the kids out for Halloween. There were some strong gusting winds on Halloween night and I was a little worried about what the conditions would be for Hamilton in the morning. When taking the kids out, I was asked at more than a couple of houses if I wasn’t too cold in my bare feet. I thought if they only new that I was heading to Hamilton in several hours to run a half marathon barefoot.
It was nice to see that the wind had died down to nothing by the time we got to Hamilton. The race kit pick-up and the bus ride to the high school (starting line) went smoothly. The high school gymnasium was crowded but a warm place to wait for the start. I was glad I had thought to bring an ankle band because the timing chip that they gave us was for attaching to shoe laces with a plastic tie-strap. I was able to attach it to the ankle band and hoped it wouldn’t rub when I was running. After checking my bag I was lucky to find Tracy who was aiming for a time I thought I could do also, but anything under 2 hours would have satisfied me. Tracy and I got our places near the front of the starting line with more than 900 people behind us. It was a little chilly waiting at the start wearing shorts at 5ºC. However, once we got running I immediately felt comfortable and knew I had made the right choice in clothing

People were passing us right from the start and a lot of them said something about my bare feet. What was nice was that everything that was said was a compliment, praise or words of encouragement and that really energized me. Tracy had a plan for how she was going to pace herself that involved her starting slow and speeding up throughout the race. I stayed with her for the first part, but by the middle of the downhill I wanted to use gravity by relaxing so I would speed up. I knew it was a gamble that I could maintain the faster pace and not burn myself out before the end since I had never run that distance before. The highway asphalt was rougher than I thought it would be so I tried to stay on the white painted lines as much as possible. I noticed shortly after the 10k mark than any talking had been replaced with puffing. By the time I reached the 17k mark I was really wanting to see the finish line. Every k marker after seemed to be too low and I had to keep telling myself that I only had a few more steps to go. I was starting to feel a tingling sensation in the middle toe of my left foot and imagined a blood blister forming. I saw the 20k sign and thought about hitting the after-burners, but just then I stepped on something sharp. I wasn’t going to stop and check it out at that point so I just kept running. I imagined I was leaving bloody footprints but then I saw the finishing shoot in the distance. At that point I did the best sprint I could do with the energy I had left and crossed the mat at 1:45:59.

I was surprised that the guy who removed my timing chip from my ankle band didn’t say anything about running barefoot, but he just seemed a little relieved that I had a chip he could remove. However, just about everyone else who saw me started with the same two questions;
“Did you run barefoot?” followed by,
“How are your feet?”.
I was happy to answer “yes” and “my feet feel great”. Despite the tingling and the sharp poke I had felt, the soles of my feet looked better than they had before the race. I could feel a little bit of muscle soreness in my feet, but it was minor compared to my quadriceps. I found it funny that people were so concerned about the condition of my feet after running the half marathon barefoot and Kasey who had run the full marathon had blood oozing out of her shoes at the end of her race.

I don’t know why anyone would want to run in shoes. They must be crazy. I can only conclude that I was the only sane one in the races. I did notice the Kenyans looking at me after the race and I think I saw a guilty look on their faces. ;-)

Warkworth 8 Miler

I finally had a glass injury from running barefoot. Now I’m sure all of the people out there that are either paranoid of broken glass, or use this type of injury as an excuse as to why they need to wear shoes will be thinking “Aha! I knew it!” However, I have received more injuries from glass to my hands than I ever have on my feet and I don’t think that is a reason to wear gloves every waking minute as some people wear shoes. This is the first glass injury I have sustained while running since I started running barefoot more that a year and a half ago. It happened on the railway bridge during the Pub Run about a month ago. A clear glass bottle had been smashed and splintered into tiny shards on the narrow path. I thought I had tip-toed safely through it, but near the end of the run I was feeling several painful jabs with every step. I knew there wasn’t much I could do until I got back to the store, so I tried to adjust my landings so that my weight was minimized in the areas where I was feeling the pain. Back at the store I removed a couple of very tiny glass shards from the sore spots. When I got home I washed, disinfected and covered the spots with liquid Band-Aid (my secret weapon). Everything seemed to heal up nicely.

On Saturday October third, I ran 15k of trails at the Ganaraska Forest. It was a cool sunny morning but warmed up nicely and the rain held off until we finished the run. The fall colours and the sandy trails make this run one of my favourites. I suffered only a couple of lacerations during the 15k run. On the shin from a whipping raspberry cane and the top of my foot from a bouncing stick. The bottoms of my feet didn’t hurt, but I felt the effects of the hills on my legs.

On a couple of the following runs I noticed some tenderness in one of the spots where I had removed the glass. I figured it was still healing or maybe bruised from the trail run. On the following Saturday we went out for a long run. Some were running point to point and others were running a much shorter out and back route. Since the point to point route was 30k to Warsaw, I opted for the out and back. I was feeling good for the first 8k out to Trent University, but my feet started to feel quite uncomfortable on the gravely trail north of Trent. I stayed with Cynthia because she said she wanted to catch up with Nick who had told her he was heading back shortly. I stayed with her until we reached the first side road that would get me to Nassau Mills Road so I could start back on a relatively comfortable surface. Once I was back on a smoother surface I started getting the sharp pain in the glass spot again. I continued back and had to slow to a walk. Just as got back to Trent, the others had caught up to me so I did what I could to stay with them back to the store. My route totalled 20k and my feet were not too sore after, but continued to be sensitive in the one spot. So on Friday night before the Warkworth 8 Miler I decided to do some home surgery. So using a utility knife and some rubbing alcohol, I cut into the spot where the glass had been removed. I went deep enough to properly clean the spot and I think I removed a small piece of glass as well. I saw a tiny sparkle and removed it, but it was so small that I lost it once it was out and so I cant confirm it was even a piece of glass or not. Everything got thoroughly disinfected with rubbing alcohol and then covered with an extra thick layer of liquid Band-Aid.

The next morning was the Warkworth 8 Miler and I was hoping the terrain wasn’t going to be too much for my freshly sealed foot. I got a little taste of winter from the frosted grass at the start. Once we got going I warmed up quickly. I started off a little slower than usual because I didn’t want my foot to start hurting again. At the first stretch of pea gravel road I had to slow down so much that I knew that I would have to make up the time on the smoother sections. Once on the trails I found I could continue some good speed as long as I really focused on picking up my feet and watching where I was about to step. There were a couple of steep hills with loose gravel that slowed me down just a little bit. When I reached the sandy potion I was quite happy and realized it might actually be possible for me to get a decent time. The final push came after I got some navigational aid from Cait and then finished at 1:15:58, only 33 seconds ahead of her. At the finish my feet felt very sensitive, but no signs of the sharp pain I had felt before. Over the next twelve hours I could feel the skin thickening on the soles of my feet.

The Halloween X-country 5k at Ganaraska forest was yesterday. I think my zombie runner costume turned out quite well and I think suited the way I felt by the end of the race. The temperature at 10am was a little warmer than the start of the Warkworth race. Knowing the race was only 5k, I started out fast enough to stay warm but not so fast as to trip on a root or rock. As I ran I kept thinking “I will just catch up to that person in front of me”. When I reached the next person I repeated the process. I knew I was going faster than was comfortable but I just tried to maintain going up the hills and rest a little coming down them. In the last two kilometres I figured I had a good time since I had passed quite a few people and none had passed me. I was very happy at the finish to come away with a personal best 5k time of 23:07.

My focus now is the Hamilton Half Marathon I will be running on November first. This will be my first half marathon and I am not expecting any great achievements other than breaking two hours. I am look forward to getting my first half marathon under my belt so I can then focus on the challenges that the Peterborough Half Marathon will present to me in February. I am not looking forward to leaving in the middle of Halloween night to get to Hamilton in time for the 6am race kit pick-up however.

Liftlock Classic 10K

Sunday morning was a cold one. When I arrived at the Lions Club for the Peterborough Liftlock Classic it was only 5ºC. After getting my bib and T-shirt I sat in the car to stay warm until the 9am start time. At about 8:50 I spotted John and got out of the car. I told him I wanted to pace off of him because I was aiming for a time like he got in Lindsay. As we headed to the starting line I felt like I was missing something. I realized I didn’t have my timing chip. I quickly picked up my chip and put it on my ankle before hastily making my way back to the start. I made it to the line in time to hear that the race would be two laps and that we would be starting at the same time as the 5k runners. That may have explained why everyone ran so fast at the start of the race. There was a short stretch of gravel not long after the start that didn’t slow me down too much but I knew I had to encounter it 3 more times in the race. I found the race to be psychologically more difficult than The Milk Run because of the looping of the course. There was a short but fairly steep hill at the Quaker parking lot driveway. Since we would be coming down it just before the final stretch, I decided to let myself go and carry the speed right to the finish. As I reached the bottom of the hill I passed John and heard him yell “I knew you were going to do that!”. I finished just a few seconds before him at 47:08. It was a slower time for him compared to The Lindsay Milk Run, but it was still a best time for me so I was happy.

Since The Lindsay Milk Run I have been running Monday night Pub Runs and Tuesday night track workouts fairly consistently. I can now run barefoot on the track for the whole workout. In the last few weeks I’ve tried to add in some longer runs. A couple of those longer runs have been on the gravel path in Jackson’s Park. The gravel still slows me down to not much faster than a walk, but I can now run the full trail from Parkhill bridge to Ackison Rd. and back (9k). I’ve now registered for the Warkworth 8 Miler. It looks like it could be challenging for me since it is the longest race I’ve run and looks like it has a lot of gravel and rough trails. With the training I’ve been doing I should be able to do it, but we’ll see.

The Milk Run

I went to see a physiotherapist about the pain in the knee I was feeling. His assessment was that I was running quite a lot for someone new to the sport and that some of my leg muscles were not as strong as they needed to be. The weak muscles were letting the strong muscles pull the knee cap off to the side enough to cause irritation and then pain. He gave me some stretches and some excercises to do to strengthen the weaker muscles.
One week before the race I ran the course to check out the surface and to get an idea of time. The surface was good with only a small patch of gravel at the trail head, but the trail itself was paved and smooth. The time was about an hour, however I didn’t accurately check the time so it was only a guess. Monday night was a fast 8.5k Pub Run. Tuesday I ran a very fast 4k on the track, followed by Wednesday’s fast 4k with a run up armour hill. I then rested the rest of the week. My knee was feeling fine considering I had run more this week than any other in my life.

In Lindsay I met up with the other runners from Runner’s Life and tried to get my name on the team. After being re-directed to several different people, I ended up giving a change of info form to the lady handing out the timing chips and she didn’t know anything about it but put the form in her pocket. I ran the MAD 10k last year in 1:05:00, so I wanted to do this in less than one hour. My target would be 50:00, but I thought it might be a long shot. I asked some of the other Runner’s Life runners what their target times were and got times around 45 minutes. Cynthia said she thought that might be a bit fast for her so I decided to pace with her. My plan was to stay with her as long as I could. When the race started the pace felt a little fast but not uncomfortably so. We were passing quite a few people and I hoped I could keep this up for the remainder of the race. At the 5k mark I found my breathing getting more laboured and Cynthia was slowly pulling away from me. I decided to just let her go and to relax and just keep my legs going. I noticed a lot of the people we had passed were now passing me. My only goal at this point was to keep running and not let myself slow to a walk. I figured I would be lucky to beat the one hour mark now. I saw a police officer friend of mine as I was coming down Adelaide St. and decided to pick up the pace a little to give a better showing. Just a little further and I was in sight of the finish line. I was determined to pass the 5k walkers and the stroller pushers that were between me and the timing mats. So with my head down, I sprinted toward the mats making sure to hit every one. Not wanting to pass out I continued to the parking lot at a ever slowing walk and then came back to the tables for some much needed ice-cream. Some people asked me how I did and I didn’t know. So I walked back to the finish line where the clock was still only reading 1:02:00. I ask if that was the 10k clock because I thought I finished close to one hour and I had already walked around for several minutes. I was told it was and suddenly felt very good. Once I read my time from the result sheet I was in disbelief at my 47:30 time. They never did get me on the Runner’s Life team, but I would have been the slowest time on it anyway. My target for my next 10k race will have to be 45 minutes or better. I don’t know when that will be, but I do know I want to start working on more distance now and maybe some trails.