A Bump in the Road, Actually, The Edge

I started my fall training plan for my full marathon this past week, taking my Tuesday run from 4-6, adding a 6 miler on Wednesday, and my normal 4 miles on Thursday.  Tuesday was rough, as our route didn't allow much additonal space unless we felt like running in a very dark area, which we chose not to, so we did 5 miles.  Wednesday's six miles were slow, but we did them.  I was really looking forward to an easy 4 miles Thursday, followed by a day of rest before 10 miles on Saturday. 

The first mile on Thursday I wasn't certain my stomach was going to approve.  Worked thru that, the next few miles I stopped trying to do my all out pace which was resulting in a lot of walking.  I finally found a decent rythem in that last mile that I was happy with, when boom, I hit the ground.

I took a turn and I heard some folks behind me and I looked over my shoulder to see where they were, when my foot slipped off the edge of the pavement and thankfully I landed on the grass shoulder of the road on all fours.  I took a second, sat still, then got up.  Everything was working ok, my hands weren't bleeding, my capris weren't ripped at the knee.  Great, just a fall, I'll be sore Friday but I'll be good to go for Saturday's run......or so I thought.

Once I hit the light I found out I had cut my knee, but it was still dark and I couldn't tell how bad or good it was.  I put a wet napkin on it in the car and headed home.  Once I got inside, I had to wake up the hubby to decide if I should hit the doctor's office and see if it needed stitches or not.  (The reason for the great debate, I made a poor decision last year after a mountian biking accident and have the ugliest scar on my left leg.)  After some discussion and a shower we decided it would be best to have it looked at. 

After two hours at the doctor's office, they wrote me a script for an ointment, told me they could do stitches, but I didn't really need them, handed me instructions on bandaging it and to work I went.  He said I could run as soon as I felt up to it, he was concerned about the swelling, but nothing big.

My poor knee

Or so I thought....my left ankle has been swelling for two days, my knee is stiff as can be, and I'm not a happy runner.  It was raining early this morning and stiffness in my knee said stay in bed.  I missed my 10 mile run but felt it would be better to miss this distance (that I've done a lot in the past couple of months) than to mess it up more and miss my weekday runs this coming week. 

I really hope things are improved by Tuesday morning, I really can't afford to miss my 14 miler next weekend, but I can't mess my leg up.  I just finished telling some friends who helped me with my training schedule that I really hadn't been injured other than one brief time after running on a treadmill (mean machine!)  I'm confident this will all work out.  Just a bump in the training plan and a lesson learned to not look back when running, I don't stear well going in that direction. LOL