The Long Trail of Healing

Trail-runner-to-be at Snow Canyon, St. George, UT.

Two weeks have passed since my 50 miler on Antelope Island and the massive injuries I accrued during training and culminating during the race itself.

1. Very sore IT band.
2. Very sore patella on the same knee.
3. Very sore foot on the other leg due to compensating for the other injuries. Actually, I think I may have sprained it somehow. I had a small amount of bruising along the outside of my foot the day after the race. That went away quickly but the pain did not.
4. Very sore tendons that lead to the big toe on both feet.
5. Very sore bottom part of front leg connected to the very sore tendons that lead to the big toe (Sing it with me, "The foot bone's connected to the ankle bone..."). 
6. Minor patella pain on the other knee.
7. Maybe an inkling of some pain on the other IT band, maybe.

After one week most of these injuries have gone away and all have subsided. It took me a whole week to be able to walk normally again and I have decided to wait three weeks before attempting any runs. This last week was Spring Break and my family went down to St. George. While visiting Snow Canyon I ran with my three-and-three-quarter year old (his words, not mine) son for a few snapshots. That consisted of jogging across the camera's field of vision four or five times--maybe two or three total minutes of running. I didn't have any IT band pain but quite a bit of patella pain, which only lasts while running. Anyway, the next day I woke up with no pain whatsoever, until a few hours past and my IT band suddenly shot lightning bolts up and down my leg. OUCH!

The short story is that healing takes time, more time than any athlete wants to give it, but must, in order to remain injury free in the future.

Winston said to me after running and taking photos "Am I a Monkey now?"