Went out for the first run since my run-in with a slippery floor. I was, of course, nervous as hell and very scared I would injure it again (even though I’d run for 2 months injury free prior to being a spaz in the church kitchen). It didn’t help that in the morning when I woke up I had a momentary pain in the ankle. No idea where it came from and a minute of walking around made it disappear. I wonder if it was just that pinched nerve acting up, or perhaps just the ankle taunting me.
I took about a block to warm the ankles up, walking up on my toes slowly and generally looking extremely silly as I always do before a run. Everything felt good, solid and strong. At the end of the block I fired up Runkeeper and took off.
Immediately I felt the ankle protest a bit and I ramped way back. It was tight, and though pain-free I knew the potential was there to go too hard, too far too fast and I settled into what I felt was a fairly slow lope. I focused on form, striking the ground gently and pushing it back instead of bouncing off of it, and tried to increase my tempo while shortening the stride. The quarter came and I was just over a 10 minute pace, which actually surprised me as I thought I was going much slower.
Even though it has been well over a week since my last “real”, timed run, I didn’t feel especially out of breath. The ankle held me back, as did a slight tingle in the knees. About a mile in a blister began to poke at my right foot and I focused on hitting more solidly across the foot instead of leading with the inside edge (gimpy ankle rebuild, not much to do about that).
All in all, a successful return to running, and an hour later I’m feeling pretty good. 21 minutes for 2 miles isn’t winning any records, but it beats a kick to the temple and in a week or so I should be back under 10/per and pushing to 3 miles. Ok, maybe two weeks. 🙂
