Since last we spoke: Part 2

Following the ten miler that resulted in my ankle digressing about, oh, two months, I ended up at Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation Therapy in Reading.  I met with Doctor Steve and I gave him the skinny on the injury itself and what I'd been up to since early October.  He took a slew of measurements to gauge the strength of the ankle and range of motion.  After everything he deduced that my injury was a grade 2 sprain (meaning torn, but not all the way torn) of the posterior tibial ligament.  That night back in October, I didn't sprain my ankle in the typical sense of rolling it to the inside or outside.  I planted my foot, and for whatever reason a rock or rut in the trail, my foot stuck and I kept moving forward.  I may have did some residual damage to the surrounding muscles and tendons, but the main injury was in the back of my foot, and I did a real number on myself.  

At the time of Doctor Steven's diagnosis I still had some swelling and the joint was very loose.  All of this confirmed what I had hoped I wouldn't have heard: I should have gone to therapy in November!

And so began my weekly trip where I'd do lots of different exercises, receive massage on the ankle to help break up scar tissue and force blood into the afflicted area as well as a healthy dose of electric stim.  Finally, Doctor Steve would take a stick of ice, formed inside a plastic cup that had half the cup removed so that a rather large chunk of ice remain, and he would rub it directly on several spots around my ankle.  If you're used to ice therapy, trust me, you've never experienced this.  Serious cold.

I would then do several exercises at home with large latex bands as well as continuing to stretch and do my morning yoga.

The last portion of my first appointment was learning that I should plan on skipping the Fells 50K.  Even if everything went great, I would be able to start really ramping up until late February at the earliest...and why push it at that point?  So I bailed, and scaled back my workouts tremendously, in hopes that the PT would pay off and I'd be back on track in no time.