26 Miles, 385 Yards
Tomorrow is Marathon Monday! I shall, for the seventh time, tackle the Boston Marathon. I will be jogging this one in, folks! Age and injury have conspired against me, and I suspect that my days of sub-4:00 marathons and sub-1:45 half marathons are behind me.
The injury is the outcome of overuse, combined with a car accident six years ago, a few weeks after that year’s BAA marathon. I was hit from behind by an elderly man and pushed into the car in front of me. This damage is from the initial impact…
…and this is from the second collision.
I braked as hard as I could to avoid hitting the other car, and this was the result. A sprained ankle.
After a couple of months I was able to start running again. I thought everything was all right — it felt all right — but beneath the ligament that had been torn, a tendon was shifting, and rubbing, and building up scar tissue, as seen in this MRI. When the problem became serious I had trouble walking, let alone running. In fact, the reason I started blogging was because I had extra time that would have otherwise been spent on the road.
Thanks to two rounds of physical therapy, and some excellent custom orthotic inserts made by Jerry Pratt (no relation) after more than a year I was able to start running again. My right ankle is still comparatively weak, but I can use it. The question now is, will it hold up and go the distance? Less than 24 hours from now, I will know the answer.
9 comments April 20th, 2008