To be honest, particularly in the summer months I tend to do my training runs on the pathways and bridle gravel paths around the 200 acres of land at the High Royds Estate where I live, which is brilliant for running or I stick to the road way paths. However, on this occasion, I decided whilst running on the gravel pathways ''I'll go off road on this run, mix it up a bit'' and strangely enough, as soon as I made the turning, I said to myself in my mind ''you might regret this if you turn your ankle or get injured here'' and literally 20 seconds into the woods on the hard trails, boom, my right ankle just gave way in a very sudden and aggressive manner.
I heard a crack, which straight away worried me and I just threw to the ground and landed on my bum shouting out a few bleep words due to the pain and then once that initial pain started to wear after a few seconds, the throbbing came and I just prayed to God that it was not broken.
After trying to speed recovery up with the famous RICE recovery:
Rest
Ice
Compression
Elevation
I found that it felt much more severe than previous ankle sprains I had and it did come up like a golf ball. After posting a picture on social media, I had many friends and healthcare professionals and people I used to know from Boots Pharmacy department from when I used to work at Boots The Chemist, who advised I probably should get it checked out.
I was probably in denial a bit at first but after looking at my ankle on Bank Holiday Monday, it looked a lot worse, not just swollen but very badly bruised and it was very tender. I had it X-Rayed at Urgent Medical Assessment Centre at Wharfedale Hospital in Otley near by and thankfully it revealed the ankle is not broken but a very bad sprain.
Conclusion:
2 months full recovery plan...
The specialist advised to keep it rested for a couple of weeks to help it recover then start mild training, gradually add strength training and then get back out jogging in a month, do my skipping moves and eventually build up to my plyometric explosive training and should then be back ready to play football again fingers crossed.
I am so close to reaching 950 competitive senior football appearances, I am only 6 games away and this is a big milestone I have been aiming to hit since I made my comeback to competitive football in June of 2022 and I plan to keep playing competitively until I am atleast 40 years old, it is just a milestone I'd love to hit while I still have something left as if I can't play semi decent anymore or my old and shot to bits legs really struggle to allow me to play the way I want to play (which at times they do) then I won't enjoy competitive football the way I want to and I'd rather retire and just play recreationally if I can't make the impact I want to. I'd rather bow out whilst I still have something left than have nothing left haha.
It is a shame anyway about this meaningful injury as the new veterans 11 a side football season with my team Bramhope MFC Vets was due to start at the end of September so I will miss quite a few of the early games and my chance to reach 950 senior games quicker but I'm not going to rush it I need to make sure it's 100% again strength wise, especially now I'm an older athlete approaching 40 and have all the miles on the clock. I was doing my regular runs as part of my mini pre-season as well to keep up my fitness for football, typical eh. Haha.
Ah well, sometimes it's good to rest your body, especially at my age pushing 40 and it might actually do me some good as I was pushing myself a lot this last year and a half with all the marathon training, running challenges and competitive football and my explosive core training on top of it all, which some of it is probably injury risky as it is.
I have to also admit that I am questioning whether wearing a 5kg weighted vest when out running outdoors is a good idea after that as I feel that having that extra weight on my back (which is un-natural to my body) may have made the impact worse?
I may be more selective with when I run wearing the weights now, just stick to the pathways and roads when wearing weights and on the trails, not wear them. I will also need to stay away from running on trails in the summer months when the ground / mud is hard and also in freezing conditions and just run on the trails when the ground is soft and always wear my trail trainers and not my road runners like I was wearing.
I guess even at 38 I can still learn from my sporting and training mistakes haha - every day is a learning day as they say...
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