Notes
Felt great about this run at the start. Parked at Warrenville Grove FP and headed south through McDowell. That seemed like a good a route that would keep me away from traffic because it's hot and I wanted to run in just short running shorts and no shirt. Overall my legs were feeling pretty good and as each mile went by I felt myself getting more and more opened up. The plan was to get 10 miles in but as I got going I started toying with the idea of going even longer.
Wasn't sure if it would be a good idea to do the woods loop because it might be really overgrown. Decided to do it anyway. About 3/4ths of the way through the loop I go to leap over a log, not realizing that the ground on the other side both super muddy and slanted toward the river. As I plant my foot, my ankle turns one way, my leg turns another, and I'm on the ground. I felt a shooting pain in my ankle, achilles and knee. The awkward position that my leg is suddenly bent in freaks me out a bit too. It took me a minute to regroup, but eventually I was able to get up. Usually, my ankles are very resilient. So even when I twist them on a trail, I'm fine within a few seconds. I was hoping that would be the case here. Unfortunately, not. Although my ankle is fine, my achilles doesn't want me to put any weight on it. So, about a mile into the woods and three miles from my car, I start to hobble along the trail. Hope of "walking it off" fades quickly. Once I got back onto the slightly firmer limestone trail I was able to jog, but that was about it. So, with my great run ruined, I shuffled the 2+ miles back to my car. Thankfully, the only thing that really hurts is my achilles. Who knows how long that will take to get better. I'm going to ice/heat like crazy today. So maybe this will all be just a bad memory in a day or two...or this might drag out forever. I can't really tell right now how bad the achilles is. Did I just strain it a bit? Or did I do some more serious damage? I really hope this is just a memory soon.
It's so frustrating to know that if I had just decided to run on the normal path, or had gone to the arboretum like I originally planned (until I decided I didn't want to wear a shirt), or even if i had just been a little bit more careful going over that log, that there would be no problems. Now, I may be on the sidelines for who knows how long. I was just starting to get some momentum back. Bummer.