It seems like whenever I decide that I want to commit to something, the universe has other plans in mind. I went to the gym with my partner last weekend to get a couple miles in on the treadmill. I decided that I was going to stop at around 2.5 miles. As I approached that distance, I fell to the belt of the treadmill and held onto the arm bars for dear life. I had just sprained my ankle, and it happened about a week after I decided I was going to be a runner again. Go figure.
In the moment, I was devastated and overwhelmingly frustrated. Not only with the excruciating pain that I was experiencing, but also with the fact that I thought this was going to leave me vulnerable to giving up on my goal of breaking twenty by the end of the year before I even got started. To add insult to injury, as I hobbled towards the front of the gym, the woman behind the desk handed me a clipboard with a blank incident report attached and asked me to fill it out.
After filling out the incident report, I limped my way back to the car and we went first to the grocery store, and then home. I spent most of that night elevating and icing my ankle and hoping for a quick recovery, but ultimately not knowing how long this was going to be an obstacle.
I woke up the next morning and to my surprise my ankle actually felt better, but it still hurt to walk and it didn’t have much mobility. My partner works at a local grocery store and ended up starting at 9:00 that morning, so around 10:30 I decided to go out and visit her at work. After “walking” into the store and tracking her down, I said my hellos and cracked a few jokes and then started heading for the door. It was Sunday, and I really didn’t have anything on my agenda for that day besides sit at home, so I stopped and made other plans.
I’ve always been a strange guy, so when I decided to walk up and down every aisle of the grocery store for about an hour, it seemed like a fun thing to do. I started at the dairy aisle and with an energy drink in hand, I started walking up and down every single aisle until I reached the produce section. Then, I would turn around and go the other way. I figured that I had rested and iced my ankle last night, but the only way that it would become functional again would be if I were to use it normally for an extended period of time. I ended up doing about 5,000 steps (which came out to over a mile and a half) in the grocery store, and by the end of it my ankle felt great. I ran into my partner again about four more times, so it was kind of like a win-win for me. I got to see her while she worked, and I got to exercise my ankle at the same time.
That night, I ended up going to the gym again, but I didn’t get on the treadmill. I got on the elliptical for about fifteen minutes, the rowing machine for five minutes, and I got on a stationary bike for another five minutes. Nothing crazy at all, but I wasn’t trying to push myself to the limit that night. I just wanted to fulfill the action of getting in the gym so that I could keep my momentum rolling.
For the record, I also kept up with my fast for that day. Even though I ended up injuring myself, I still managed to rely on my systems and had the discipline to keep going with my goals. People say self-pride isn’t really the best thing to have, but I will say that I am proud of myself for overcoming that adversity and doing something – even if it was only 25 minutes of mixed cardio and intermittent fasting.
Now though, it seems like I am going to have to rearrange my training plan. I don’t want to risk trying to run until next weekend at the earliest, which means I am going to have to do other forms of exercise. I’m thinking about dividing my cardio up between the bike and the elliptical and mixing in some of the rowing machine every day as well, just to keep on top of things. I’ll probably keep on with my weight training schedule save for pushing exercises with legs because I don’t know if my ankle is there yet.
Regardless of when I can return to my regularly scheduled training, as long as I keep up with my systems, I feel like I am going to be ok.
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