I picked some of my favorite people to run with, Coleen
Voeks and Deb Johnson, and we stuck together pretty much the whole way. We came
through the exactly half way mark right at 3 hrs and we all feeling great. I
was leading our pack most of the way between miles 15 and 25 and gaining a lot
of ground and we were narrowing in on a negative split, sub 6 hour finish. But,
that’s not how it went down in the end this time.
At mile 27-ish I rolled my ankle and fell into the shrubs.
My foot was flat to the rock and the ankle hit the ground as I fell. The flash
of pain was intense and I thought I was going to puke. I got up and tried to
walk it off and after 5 minutes or so was back to a slow run, with my
confidence coming back, though it still hurt a bit. Then I bit it again, this
time much harder and much worse. The pain was just so intense. My face turned
white. Deb shared some ibuprophen and the foot started to swell really fast…though
I knew not to take my shoe off until after I crossed the finish line. I got up and hobble step walked and sometimes
ran really slowly on the safe flat debris-free areas, though there weren’t very
many of those.
I crossed the finish line in 6:12, I believe, which is still
a decent time for a 50K, especially with having to nearly crawl the last 4+
miles.
My ankle swelled up to nearly cantaloupe size after the race
and stayed that way for a few days and continued to be sore and stiff for 10
days. On the 11th day I ran 2 miles pain free and started back in.
15 days after the sprain I ran a marathon (Andy Payne) pain free for the most
part. 18 days after the sprain I hiked Pikes Peak. 5 weeks after the sprain it’s
just slightly swollen and just slightly awkwardly stiff but I am still running on
it, as long as it doesn’t really hurt too bad. I’m staying off the trails until
it’s truly healed, though.
