Sprained Ankles and the Inexorable Passing of Time

Let’s compare and contrast two times I’ve sprained my ankle, once when I was 22 and again when I was 44. First, when I was 22 years old, I had a job as an assistant director at a summer camp. This was the summer after my first year teaching— which was very difficult and stressful. My first day at camp, before any campers and only a few of the staff had even arrived, I was up on a first story roof of one of the buildings finishing a project. When I was finished, because there were people watching, I decided I would jump off the roof instead of going back through a second story window the way I had gotten up there. This didn’t just mean hopping down off the 8 foot high roof, it also meant I needed to jump out another 8 feet or so to clear a short fence around the building. This would have been an excellent way for me to break my leg on the landing, or maybe catch my foot on the fence on the way by, tumble, and land on my head doing god knows what damage, but things worked out relatively alright. I landed not quite as gracefully as intended and rolled over one of my ankles, but was otherwise OK, jumped to my feet, and acted like that was exactly what I meant to do. When I woke up the next morning, though, I discovered that my ankle had swelled up like a grapefruit and was stiff and painful to walk on. This was devastating— my anxiety immediately told me that I would probably have to quit the job since I couldn’t go up and down stairs and that I would have to live in the knowledge that it was all because I did something stupid to show off. However, because I was 22, I spent about an hour walking around on it, gradually loosening up the joint, and was back to normal by noon, suffering no lingering effects. A healthy person in their early twenties has a lot in common with Wolverine from the X-Men.

The second time I sprained the same ankle happened just a few days ago. Now 44 years old, I was out for a run on the trails at Fort Benjamin Harrison State Park here in Indiana. I had just missed over a week of running because of a bout with walking pneumonia, which had caused some set backs in my efforts to rebuild my fitness after missing almost two months of running recovering from a broken foot, and I was finally feeling like myself again. But, towards the end of the run, I had a moment where I was looking ahead at the trail instead of down at my feet and I tripped over a root and fell down hard. I’ve lost my footing trail running before and it usually takes a comical amount of time— I start to fall and run three or four steps trying to slow down and catch my balance, finally sliding down in the leaves and then hopping back up to keep going. This time, the fall seemed instantaneous— one second I was upright and running, the next I was in a pile on the ground trying to figure out what had happened. It took a few minutes for me to get my bearings back and get back on my feet— I bent my sunglasses and lost track of my headphones, and Mason the dog, who was running with me, didn’t run off to find a helpful park ranger but instead thought we were playing a game and kept jumping on me, all of which took time for me to sort out. When I finally got to my feet, I saw that I had skinned up of my knees pretty bad and was bleeding down my leg, but otherwise was in one piece. And my initial response was exhilaration. Again, I had just spent a week mostly confined to a couch fighting off an illness, and in the not too distant past I had been confined to a walking boot and crutches. As I started running again (I was about a mile from my car), it felt so good to have my body take that hit and keep going, and made me feel like a stronger, healthier version of myself. It was great.

But the next morning, I woke up at 2 AM in quite a bit of pain from my ankle. It was swollen and stiff and painful to move. I was supposed to run a 5k that morning and told myself I would get a few more hours of sleep after taking some ibuprofen and see how it felt, but after a sleepless hour went by it was pretty clear that there would be nothing gained by me pushing this ankle around a race course. I still wanted my race shirt, though, so I was determined to get down to the race check in and pick up my packet. I had to accept the reality of my situation, though, which meant I needed to find my crutches down in the basement if I was going to get across the parking lot. So, I drove down to the race, limped across to check in on crutches, got some weird looks from the other runners because it was pretty clear I wasn’t there to race, picked up my shirt, and headed home.

Instead of walking off this injury, I’ve spent the last 24 hours trying to ice and elevate and constantly reminding myself not to push it too far. It seems like it will be at least a few days before I can do any running, but the good news is that I’m supposed to be training for this triathlon anyway, so its time to get in some biking. It felt refreshing to feel like my younger self again when I got up, bloody after my fall, and kept running, but the fact is I’m not that anymore, and just because I’m frustrated about time lost in a boot or the sick bed doesn’t mean I can push through an injury that might end up putting me right back in the boot.

If that 5k had been my training goal, maybe I would have gone out there and limped around the course just to say I’d done it, but it’s not. If you’re new here, this blog is documenting my journey training to run 5 half marathons in 4 weeks this July as part of a multistate road trip. The whole thing is a fundraiser for the National Diaper Bank Network— please consider hitting that Donate button up at the top of the page and making even a small contribution. Thanks!