Wednesday, November 9, 2011

The Halloween Half Marathon

On Saturday October 29th I ran my 2nd Half Marathon. It was the Provo Halloween Half, costumes were encouraged and so Ken round me some $1 cat ears and I painted my face- those two things combined with my black running clothes made me a wonderful black cat.















My sister Laurie also ran, she was a skeleton. I finished my first half marathon in 2 hours 35 minutes or so, I finished this one in 2 hours 14 minutes! YEAH! Yes, the first 4 miles were ext ream downhill grades, and the rest of it was pretty much downhill as well, but I was told my my doctor on Monday that a 21 minute improvement shows that I was better trained and in better shape- the downhill helped, but not that much. The picture above is of Laurie and me before the race, below you will see me after the race. my nose and whiskers stayed on really well- how? I used water proof Mascara.















I tried very hard to stretch sufficiently but I was pretty sore on Sunday. Monday, Halloween, I was still quite sore but I was getting better. I was excited about how well I had done and I signed up for another half marathon in June and a 10k on Thanksgiving. I was all dressed up in my Halloween Half shirt and I was wearing my medal- I figured Halloween was a day you could wear medals and not have anyone look at you funny. I was on my way downstairs to see if the baby had woken up from his nap, hoping that he was so that I could take the boys to Ken's office and show off their costumed cuteness. I was taken by surprise when I reached the landing at the bottom of the stairs and I heard a POP and felt a horrible, horrible pain. I think I remember looking down and seeing my ankle turned at an odd angle. I do remember that I really felt like I needed to call 911, it hurt THAT BAD! J was on the potty, of course, and he came running when he heard me screaming. I talked him into putting underpants and pants back on, then he brought me the phone and eventually he went to get a neighbor for me. I was able to move myself around and lay on the landing with my leg elevated on the stairs. My neighbor checked on baby B, who had slept through all my screaming, and she brought me pillows and frozen green-beans, to ice my ankle. Ken got home and took me to the insta-care where they took X-Rays and told me that I hadn't broken my ankle, but had sprained it.

Like a true addict I asked the doctor if I was going to be able to run again- especially since I had just registered for a race on Thanksgiving. I was told that I needed to stay off the ankle for 3 days, then I could walk if there was no pain, and then 2 weeks after the injury occurred I could start running again. I was really worried that something was really wrong, I was doing what I was told to do, I was using crutches and elevating my ankle and icing it and keeping it wrapped, yet it was still swelling, weird swelling. I broke down at bedtime on Wednesday, Poor Ken. Thursday was the day that I was supposed to be able to walk, and I just didn't see that happening. But it did! I could walk, with no pain! And so I kind of over did it. So I tried to make sure I still took it easy on Friday and Saturday and Sunday.

On Monday I had my annual physical with our Family Practice Doctor. I am the healthiest I have EVER BEEN, my cholesterol is perfect, in face all my lab tests were great. My blood pressure and heart and lungs were great. I am doing great with my weight loss and I have a firm final goal for my weight- set with my doctor. AND he said that I had torn a ligament (he said which one but I don't remember) and that I shouldn't be worried about it, it will heal. I asked how long it would take to heal and he said about 4 weeks and I said "so does that mean I can't run my race on Thanksgiving?" He smiled. Did I tell you he is a runner- he ran in the Half Marathon I did in August. He told me that I could start jogging next Monday if I promised to take it slow and stop if it hurt and as long as I wasn't suffering too much pain I could run the 10k on Thanksgiving. I have ankle strengthening exercises I have to do. But I am feeling much better today than I was a week ago.

So that is the story of the My Halloween Half and my SCARY Halloween Sprain.

1 comment:

Jennifer Hatch said...

I'm glad that your ankle wasn't broken, and that you still get to run in your Thanksgiving race. I'm also very impressed that J was able to get you some help like such a responsible little guy!