Sprained my ankle

[clarys]

I've just got back to a stage where I am running weekly 5K and starting to enjoy it again. Yesterday I was going to do a couple of miles up a road which turns into a concreted farm track. The concrete has collapsed at one point and I normally run over this carefully. Not so yesterday - I was looking at a stile on my right and thinking about taking the path when my left foot went down the collapsed bit of road and sprained my ankle. I'd only gone about half a mile so was able to hobble home and I did RICE, found my ankle support and today it's not so painful. I started C25K in January, was doing fine until catching Covid then hot weather put me off. It feels like it has taken me a couple of months to get back to where I was and now I have to stop again. I don't think it's a bad strain, as I had a worse one years ago (other foot) that took about 6 weeks to recover. Frustrating though.

[nowster Graduate]

You poor thing! I had a bad sprain (both sides of left ankle) two and a bit years ago. It also took me about a month to start running again. As you know, the most important thing to do is not to run on it if it's still twingeing.

It'd be a good thing if you can do some gentle ankle exercises at this point.

What helped me most was a physio visit. I'd also been doing RICE and using ankle supports, but they weren't getting me anywhere. My mistake was doing gardening (in wellies) a day after spraining it, and running then walking on it three days later. By the end of the week it was extremely painful to walk on the flat.

And all through that month I was fuming because I couldn't run. I'd only just completed C25K, and had to restart running (on physio's instruction) with something less strenuous than C25K's week 1 runs. It took me another 9 weeks to get back up to 30 minutes, but that may actually have been a good thing. I now have strong ankles.

Best of luck in getting back to running again.

[clarys Graduate in reply to nowster]

Thanks Nowster, I think you definitely understand how frustrated I feel! Mine is definitely not as bad as the previous one, but like you say it's better to give it time. I'm just worried as I took a break cos of covid and heat, and my fitness level just dropped - the thought of starting again is a bit depressing. I'll definitely start with the exercises though.

[MrsLydiaWickham Graduate]

Bad luck @clarys, that's so frustrating for you. Wishing you a speedy recovery. 💐

[clarys Graduate in reply to MrsLydiaWickham]

Thank you