After nine very successful, mind blowing, expectation altering days of running a 10k (6.2 miles) a day my ankle swelled up…. DANGIT!!!

I was so frustrated. And it was amazing the series of emotions that came with a swollen ankle. Feelings and thoughts about self-worth, goals and my work ethic. I was so caught up with all that I thought my injured ankle said about me and my training I missed what had actually happened.

See a friend of mine who is a physical therapist looked at my ankle and immediately discerned which muscles and tendons were affected. And since I continued to say “I didn’t roll it. I don’t know what happened” he began to pin point some more long term conditions that could have caused the swelling.

Those long term conditions continued to fuel my feelings of messing something up or running wrong or my favorite line to beat myself up with “I am not really a runner or an athlete anyway…” And that created what we as therapists would call a feedback loop. And I was so trapped in that feedback loop until….

Michael and I were on the scooter flying down Newport Ave when it all came back to me. I had rolled my ankle on that road a few days before the swelling! I remembered laughing at myself because as a trail runner I am always so careful not to roll or catch my foot on technical trail and here I was walking and drinking water when I rolled my foot. It didn’t hurt at the time so I shook it off as a lucky break and kept running.

Our minds are so powerful at fulfilling that which we are most afraid of. It is so powerful we can often be blind to glaring insight or facts.