Sigh ...

If I weren't such a determined runner I swear I would have given up by now. The latest? A self-diagnosed synovial impingement. The OSH woman doing a ergonomic assessment of our new EA's desk set-up had a quick look and agreed with my suspicions this afternoon.

I have a crease of pain running horizontally across the area where my foot connects to my tibia (across the front of the very base of my shin). It hurts when I push my foot upwards, and it hurts when I flex it downwards. It hurts if I compress everything by running on it. I have a reduced range of motion that makes it difficult to walk in flat shoes. Essentially, I am again bung. And of course, the last two days have been PERFECT for running.

I should have been able to fend this off. I know that I have a tendency to stiffness across that area. In the past I've been able to keep it sufficiently mobile by doing ankle rotations and crouching down and rocking on my feet while holding on to a pole. I think all the hills I have been running lately have simply been too much. I knew I was slightly stiff on Sunday, but not sufficiently to set off any alarm bells.

On Monday I was undeniably sore. Pretending it was still just a bit of stiffness I completed my scheduled forty inutes on the flat, and ended up running closer to fifty. Ironically, I was feeling really fit, but I knew I was in pain and my reduced range of motion was making it difficult to run with any real technique. I wanted to go faster and I should have been capable of going faster, but my foot wouldn't let me.

I had a terrible day at work on Tuesday. I couldn't do Balance because someone scheduled a meeting over the top of my out-of-office time. I got really grumpy, and wanted badly to run to let go of some of my aggression. Of course, it was a beautiful evening. Frustrated I went home, ate way too much Chana Masala from Khana Khazana and drank a huge glass of red wine. This morning I felt lumpen as well as sore!

A good weights session this morning at least made me feel slightly more active, and after work I decided to give RPM a try. Turns out, my ankle can handle the spin. The instructor did well at maintaining momentum in a mostly empty class, and I managed to burn off a little of that curry. Mike was worried that I would hurt my ankle, but he commented that I was stubborn, like him. That's me - stubborn enough to run on an ankle that was already hurting, and stubborn enough to keep exercising, even if it meant sitting in a dark crank room on the most beautiful spring evening yet. Darn. It's just occurred to me that I really should have gone for a spin on the long neglected Lola instead.

I'm dreading telling Duck in the morning that I'm injured again. I was really looking forward to running my second set of treadmill intervals today. Hopefully I will be right in time for my sixty minutes on Saturday, but if need be I'll hold off until the inflammation has died down. I know I'm going to be able to do the Rimutaka Incline as long as I don't worsen any injuries. It's not my fitness levels that are the problem!

On the positive side, this is the last niggle that has finally turned into something more than a nuisance. If I deal with this (and I'm getting smarter at dealing with each issue that arises) then hopefully I'll emerge even stronger. I can only hope. I can't face the thought of just quitting.