Weekly Log 20-Feb to 26-Feb-2023: Ankle Rehab

Monday:  10 ride, 1 walk

Stonington, CT:  Assisted in course certification of Battle of Stonington 5K.  Includes riding 1,000' course calibration, taking temperature measurements, calculating wheel revolutions per mile (and kilometer), and riding and measuring course with Jones counter.

New London, CT:  Same task, different course:  Sailfest 5K.

Westerly, RI.  Course measurement took all day.  Stopped at Avondale Preserve on way home for a brisk walk.

Tuesday:  6 walk, 1 run

Westerly, RI:

- CCC:  2 miles clearing the new cedar trail at Barlow Preserve 2.

- Time killer:  Finished CCC early, with 40 minutes before the next task, so drove to nearby Weekapaug and walked the beach area.

- Trail connecting:  With the WLT Land Stewardship Manager, and Google Maps overlaid with property boundaries, walked a path from Cottrell Preserve to the Westerly Town Forest trail system.  It's wet in a few places, but not as bad as we thought.  Has potential for a future trail.

Discovery during our walk.  Doesn't look like this car will be
moving again anytime soon!  I wonder how and when this was
driven here and apparently abandoned.

Charlestown, RI:

First run since my ankle sprain five days ago.  Went to Ninigret Park and ran an easy mile on flat paved bike path.  Running straight felt fine, as did turning left (interior angles for my swollen right ankle), but right turns (exterior angles) did not feel good or stable at all.  Progress, but I've got a ways to go.

Wednesday:  4

Charlestown, RI.  A 4-mile run!  Yay!  Almost aborted 1/4 mile in as ankle felt quite awkward.  Fortunately I continued on and it got better.  Simplified the route to eliminate a number of turns and that worked well.  Flat and even paved roads works well; hard right turns continue to be unstable and uncomfortable.  Ruled out racing this weekend, and probably will avoid trail running (excluding manicured trails) until after that.

Thursday:  3 walk

Westerly, RI.  Ankle sore from yesterday's run.  Played it safe and limited today's activity to the WLT Thursday hike series, with today's being at Bradford Preserve.

Friday:  8

Exeter, RI.  Slow and easy on Arcadia roads with Brady.  Planned straight quiet roads with all left turns.  Started at Arcadia check station, and kept telling myself slow and easy and just turn around if it bothered me.  Felt awkward but no pain.

We got to the southern end of Blitzkrieg Trail (dirt road) and then I figured if I turned around at this point it'd be 7.5 miles or I could trek on to make a loop and run 8.  Loop it is.   Turning onto Arcadia Road, we encountered the single car of the whole run!  Left onto Summit Road, another dirt road, and it was back to a very quiet country road that we could just run in the middle of the road.  I think that was my first time ever running the full length of Summit Road, and it went by very quickly.

Saturday:  10!

South Kingstown, RI.  Bagged the Colchester Half based on my ankle.  Still a bit swollen and black/blue.  Wanted to continue to run easy and quiet roads, but also being a snowy day it seemed the South County Bike Path with zero cars would be a good idea.  I think the last time I ran the bike path was three years ago, when we were smack dab in the pandemic, the bike path was teeming with people who previously didn't get outside for exercise much, and some of them were none to happy voicing their displeasure that I wasn't wearing a face mask.  Yes, outside on a bike path while running.  Fortunately today I encountered neither crowds nor zealots.

Speaking of which, it was so refreshing to go to my annual physical last week and finally NOT to have to wear a face mask in the medical office.  Completely optional unless you had any sickness symptoms.  

Back to the run:  Parked at Kingston RR station, and ran 5 miles OAB to Peace Dale.  Just past the old Peace Dale Train Station, I was coming up on 5 miles and between the snow-covered path, my injured ankle, and my disdain for "cone turnarounds", I opted to run a short lollipop turn-around loop:

Turning onto Columbia Street, it was a trip down memory lane for me:  

• I saw my kindergarten building in the background, and was glad to see that like me, it was still standing after all these years.
• Next I ran past River Bend Athletic Club, where I played racquetball decades ago.  Also tried at my hand at squash there after being introduced to it in Macao.  That was so long ago that Macao was part of Portugal back then.  Which brings up a question of whether I can include Portugal in the list of countries I visited?  I digress ...
• Ran past the Neighborhood Guild, where I played on the playground many, many times as a child and even skated there when they flooded the tennis courts and they froze over.  Do they still do that?  I also wondered if the Indian artifact museum still exists on the 2nd floor.
• The Peace Dale library!  I probably didn't appreciate the architectural marvel back in the 60s and 70s, but I sure do remember Mom bringing us there to get books.
• And finally, I ran past where my Dad worked early on in his career as an accountant.  The old mill buildings used to be Palisades Industries, but it now seems to a cornucopia of mixed use, including a brewery and an indoor climbing studio.

I was giddy from my childhood flashback as I turned back onto the bike path in Peace Dale and headed back towards West Kingston.  The snow was picking up and that kept me in a good mood as well.  On the way back, I encountered two recreational areas I don't think existed last time, although I could be wrong:  a disc golf course adjacent to the bike path and wooden steps leading up to a SKLT marked trail and kiosk.

This kiosk seems very new.  Nothing even attached to it yet!

Which SKLT preserve is this?  Where does this trail go?

Ah, snow!  The way February should be in New England.  Not much, but
 I'll take it after this year's disappointingly warm winter bereft of snow.
  With today's high only in the low 20s,
the snow was dry and not slippery on the bike path at all.

Neat view looking from the trail into the Great Swamp.

Sunday:  4

Westerly, RI.  At Grills with Brady.  I call this one "Two Steps Forward, One Step Back".  Stuck to dirt roads almost exclusively, and then on the short connector parts, I just took it super slow and cautiously.  Ankle did not feel as good as yesterday and both calves were sore, so this would be good for a short recovery run.

I had only about a half mile left to do and was on the dirt road headed back (orange "trail") when all of a sudden I rolled my right ankle outward.  I immediately noticed it, caught it, came to a stop, and walked it off.  This was real minor compared to the ankle sprain nine days ago, but it scared me a little (maybe a good thing?) and got me thinking:

1. Should I bow out of my 5K a week from today?
2. Should I stop running anything but asphalt?
3. Should I bag my loose plans to try single-track in the coming week?
4. Should I drop out of the Border Patrol Challenge?

Went home, iced it, and reflected again on these four questions.  Came to the following conclusions:

1. No, unless something worsens, run the 5K.  It's asphalt, very flat, and only has two right-hand turns.
2. I would say stop running anything except asphalt and near-manicured dirt roads, at least until the swelling is gone.  (e.g., roads like I ran Friday - Blitzkrieg Trail and Summit Road are fine, dirt roads in Grills no)
3. An emphatic yes.  Unfortunately.  Ankle is just too unstable.  Let's re-evaluate in another week's time.
4. I don't want to get ahead of myself.  Certainly no BPC runs this week, and will re-evaluate beyond that.  It's just not worth re-injuring unnecessarily.

Weekly mileage:  27 run, 10 ride, 10 walk

Weekly synopsis:  The weekly run mileage just doesn't mean anything to me while I'm trying to recover from my ankle injury.  What matters much more is measurable progress, and that I can observe.

Weekly highlight:  Saturday's run on the South County Bike Path.  It was my longest run since the ankle injury, I had zero pain, and it was snowing!  All good stuff.

Weekly lowlight:  Today's setback.  Trying to stay positive though, and reminding myself that injury recoveries seldom take a linear path forward.