Dates: 10/17/22 – 10/23/22
Training Week: 8
Miles: 27.1 (running) + 26.1 (cycling) + 8.6 (walking)

Commentary: On Monday I made it a point to walk from my work building to class to get some time on my feet. This jankle is starting to bring me down a bit. My body and cardiovascular systems feels strong and ready to run a 50-miler except for my jankle.

Since the jankle did well on my 25-mile trail run, on Tuesday I figured it should do fine on a 6-mile road run. Wrong! By mile two it was feeling quite uncomfortable. By mile three it straight up hurt and was affecting my gait. I cut the run short and only did four miles. Sigh. Luckily I did a lot of walking at work, so that made me feel a little better about not getting those two miles in.

I didn’t think intervals would be the best for jankle, and I considered doing hill repeats instead. But there aren’t any good hills close to where I live or work, and I can’t bring myself to use the treadmill just yet. So, I did a mini duathlon on Wednesday instead. I popped some ibuprofen and ran two miles for my warm up, did 12 miles of intervals on the spin bike, and then ran another two miles. It felt pretty good!

On Wednesday I also got word that I didn’t get the GIS job I interviewed for. Even though it was a student position and they expect to do a fair amount of on-the-job training, I didn’t have enough experience to get my foot in the door. The guy who interviewed me did encourage me to apply for future student positions, so I guess that’s positive?

Wednesday night I got home and didn’t want to workout. Thankfully, my husband convinced me to. The idea behind the workouts was to do more work on the right side than the left side to get it stronger. But as I was going through the exercises I noticed my balance is getting worse on my left side due to the jankle. I adjusted my workouts and do the same reps on each side now, even the ankle exercises.

The ankle exercises did not feel the greatest on the jankle. A part of me wondered if I was doing more damage than good. When I woke up Thursday morning it felt good, so maybe the exercises helped? I really wanted to run, but I settled on a 12-mile ride. My legs were quite tired by the end of the ride, so that made me feel good.

I moved my long run to Friday since it was supposed to rain all day Saturday followed by drastically dropping temperatures and five days with a chance of snow/frozen mix. I picked a new trail just west of the Tetons and set out at sunrise.

The jankle had felt good all night, and still felt good in the morning. To be safe, I took some ibuprofen before the run, and I wore my new compression calf sleeves. The trail was beautiful, the moose left me alone, and the hiking/running felt awesome. Towards the end I could tell my legs were tired. Perhaps I should have given my legs more time to recover from bike intervals and strength training?

Nineteen miles later and the jankle still felt alright. Hurray! I went home and put an ice pack on it, just to safe. It felt fine until around 8pm. I got up to grab some ice cream, and the jankle hurt. And not where it’s been hurting, that part still felt okay. The bend on the top of the foot by the leg, and that squishy part between the ankle and the Achilles hurt. Boo!

I took some more ibuprofen and put on compression socks before bed. As I fell asleep all I could think of is that I’m an idiot. Why didn’t I just take an easy week like I’d planned? Why didn’t I do more cycling and less running? Why did I run at all? I knew that continuing to run could likely make things worse, but I did it anyway.

This 50-miler means everything to me. It’s the one race I really need to train for to get the Moab Triple Crown. The 50ks are easy peasy because they give you 11 hours to go 31 miles. The 50-miler gives you 12 hours to go 50 miles. All I want out of life is to finish this 50-miler! Obviously I don’t want it bad enough to take it easy on the jankle…

Saturday I rested most of the day. I did hop on the treadmill to do some walking to get my steps in for the day. I picked an iFit “hike” to start off with, and the steep incline did not agree with my jankle. Next, I chose something flat and easy, but I think I already aggravated the jankle too much because it didn’t feel great by the end.

I woke up this cold, Sunday morning with the jankle feeling meh. I still wanted to get my steps in for the day, but instead of doing it all at once I broke it up into small chunks. The Tommy Rivs Road to Recovery series on iFit was perfect.

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