Injured

On October 26th I went to Peoria, Illinois with a friend and we participated in the Screaming Pumpkin quarter marathon race.  See post I wrote about it here with pictures  It was a great time until I got a little crazy.  We were running in a massive cemetery, one of the largest and oldest cemeteries in all of Illinois.  The path was just fine, but I saw an enormous gravestone with my friend's last name of Schmidt on it and had to get a picture of it.  WHY?  I really don't know, but I had to have a picture.  So I proceeded to run towards the gravestone.  I didn't see the ditch, for it had a huge amount of fallen leaves in it, filling it up and making the ground look level.  I ran right into the ditch and to my surprise fell about a foot and while doing that rolled my ankle BADLY.  It was such a shock that I just screamed out in pain and sat there for a little bit to catch my breath of the shock of what just happened.

Dang I thought, I have another marathon in 11 weeks, what was I thinking going off the path into unknown ground, just for a dumb picture.  Well injuries are NEVER smart. 

After a few minutes my friend asked me if I could walk.  I tried to walk and it hurt, but not bad after a few more steps.  Then we tried to run and to my surprise running felt better than walking.  So for the rest of the 5 miles we ran as much as we could to finish the race and receive an awesome finishing medal which to me was better than a lot of Half marathon medals I've received over the last 3 years.

After the race I had the ankle evaluated by a physical therapist at the race, she said she didn't think it was broken, but that was only her opinion.

So after eating some food my friend and I left for home.  I was driving home and it was about a 2.5 hour drive which wasn't too bad, but I should have been icing that ankle.

When I arrived home that night I immediately iced it and then went to bed.  It wasn't swollen however it hurt pretty bad.  At about 5:30a.m. I woke to INTENSE pain.  I had to get an ice pack and wrap that sucker to my ankle and take pain meds just to get back to sleep.

Over the next day the foot and ankle swelled up huge, like an elephant foot.   The pain wasn't so bad, but it looked really bad and the toes were tingly and I thought the foot would explode so I went to the ER to have it x-rayed.  It wasn't broken.  The doctor that checked me out said he was a runner too and if I felt like running on it in a week when the swelling was down to do so.

That was the news I wanted to hear.

So the next Saturday (1 week and 1 day) after the injury I ran on it.  Maybe a short run would have been okay, but I did another half marathon.  That was not smart.  Well maybe it was, the ankle felt fine during the entire run, however my knee started to hurt so bad by mile 7.5 that I couldn't run properly anymore.  What the heck was happening to me?  I was able to finish the half marathon, but shouldn't have because by the time I got to mile 12.5 I could hardly walk and the pain was massive that it brought tears to my eyes.  If you are runner then you probably understand the stubbornness of why I finished after this.  It was because of this, "Why would you quit a race when you only have .5 of a mile left.  Seriously?"  I had come so far and if I was going to quit, it should have been at mile 7.5 or 8, not then.

On Monday after the race I went to the Sports Medicine doctor at the University of Iowa to check out my knee.  He said I had a Parameniscal cyst on my knee.  He said it can be caused by a lot of pounding.  I'm wondering if I have a tear since I've ran much further before and never had this kind of pain.  Everything I have read says the Parameniscal cysts are caused by meniscus tears so I really want to know if I have a tear or not. I'm wanting a 2nd opinion and plan on getting a copy of my MRI that was taken 6 weeks ago after my Baker's Cyst was diagnosed and see if another doctor can tell me more information.  If it means another MRI, I'm all for it.  I need to know what the heck is really going on in there before returning to full out running.  My doctor told me to only do lots of short runs like 4 miles, 6 miles, 4 miles, maybe an 8 miler, but to leave the long runs out and instead do the amount of time it would take me on a long run of 9 or more miles on an elliptical or water running or even biking. 

I wish I really knew what was really going on inside that knee.  It's frustrating to have a diagnosis and not trust it.  I don't trust it because this diagnosis was given without a picture, just a guess and feeling the leg.  The last MRI was taken 6 weeks ago and the results of that was that I had a Baker's Cyst that exploded.  No more information was given.

So I wait and hope that training a different way for this upcoming marathon in January will prepare me enough to complete the marathon and hope that I won't be in intense pain during the marathon. 

Today I biked for 50 intense minutes.  No pain today in the knee, but still pain in the ankle when walking.  I'm sure running 13 miles on it was very stupid.