cankle

I am feeling sorry for myself.

This may or may not have resulted in me eating seven servings of Honey Nut Chex Mix for lunch yesterday, having sangria for dinner the night before, telling myself I’m fat while looking at race pics, and watching nearly half an hour of The Bachelorette.

The combo of post-race blues and my stupid, swollen, slovenly, sprained ankle has done a little number on me. I haven’t done any training since the tri commenced, so it’s been three full days. That in itself is incredibly frustrating, and I am kind of in limbo about whether to “rest” my ankle, or “stretch” it to keep from getting too stiff.

Going to the doctor, paying a copay, and receiving instructions that are exactly identical to what you already know is not my favorite sequence of events. Money is super tight right now as I am about to buy a car, and I need access to another $100 if I’m ready to compete in the next event, The DragonFlyTri. (Also, I desperately need a haircut.) The Dragonfly is less than three weeks away, btw, and begins with a HALF MILE SWIM. Holy effballs. Point being, I am throwing a screaming baby fit and don’t want pay a $30 co-pay + additional money for stupid brace or whatever.

Attempting to ice my ankle at an extremely awkward angle from my work desk.

My plan to do Zoom Through the Zoo tomorrow to get a time to beat in the CY 4-miler is blown. I’m paranoid, at least, I think it’s paranoia, that if I miss a week of running I’ll lose all of the momentum I’ve built over the past couple months.

I really believed that a couple days of icing and elevating would yield a like-new ankle. This has not been the case and I don’t handle disappointment well. I’ve been fortunate enough not to sustain a single injury since beginning tri-training, and it is really messing with my head that I was mysteriously injured during the race. It’s such an in-between type of injury, too, because it’s not that bad and I don’t want to be overly dramatic about it.

So, what to do? Doctor? Hold off on running and try to bike and swim in the meantime? Super-cautious, super-careless, or somewhere in between? I’ve been hitting up Dr. Google (as my friend Karen would say) to get some answers, but as always, it’s all a matter of interpretation.

I actually do feel a little better today than I did yesterday, and I am consoling myself with some of the stats from Saturday’s race. The average finishing time for males was 1:42:09. The average finishing time for females was 1:43:29. That means I beat both average times by several minutes. Pretty excited about that!

And this will always get me to smile:

Star’s photo of my dad running me to the finish 🙂