My Journey With Health And Fitness – Time To Recover

My sister and I have decided that we need to go back to doing family fun days which we did with our brother during the pandemic. Now we will also include my husband which makes it a bit more challenging because he does not necessarily like the same things that we think are fun. We started this past Saturday with my sister and I going out for lunch and to see Legally Blonde The Musical performed by a community theatre group. It was absolutely fabulous and it was a great time. While my husband, brother and I are heading to Mexico for 7 weeks, I have committed to one day a week when we return we will pick something off our extensive list of fun things and make sure we do it.

Yesterday things went a little south for me. I got home from bootcamp and realized my left ankle was a bit sore. Cognizant of the fact Mexico is only a few days away I decided not to do a run but instead do a long walk. About 6.5km into the walk I felt a pop in my ankle and then shooting pain. Oh, oh, I thought, this can’t be good. Realizing I was not going to be able to walk home I called my husband to come pick me up.

This is where I have to do some heavy mental deep breaths. My head immediately went to oh no, I am not going to be able to workout, the world is coming to an end. I tried to convince myself that if I just stayed off it for a day all would be ok. Seriously? By the end of the day I realized this was not going to happen so I canceled this morning’s bootcamp and slept in. While it is slightly less swollen today it is still sore and thus another day of not working out. I am applying my prescription anti-inflammatory cream and I have some that I will be taking to Mexico with me.

It is hard for me to have to stop exercising all of a sudden especially when I had been pushing myself hard these past few weeks but I am being realistic. I highly doubt I will be able to do much this week other than walk through the airports. But really, is that going to significantly impact me? No it is not. If the ankle isn’t feeling completely healed by next week (and I do mean completely healed) I’ve already got a plan in place. While my original plan was running, bootcamp and walking for a total of 3 hours each weekday (I drop the bootcamp on weekends) I will be able to do a couple hours of ‘aquafit’ in the pool each day. I then can spend some time using my weights and doing some core exercises. Using the pool should allow me to get in some good cardio without adding extra pressure on my ankle. I think if I can pull it off it will be a good alternative.

The important thing is that I have realized I need this recovery time. I don’t know how I hurt my ankle (I suspect it might have been when I tripped over a branch when walking on a path on Sunday) but I do know that if I want to be able to continue to keep myself fit then I need to give that ankle all the recovery time it needs. And so I think I have now given myself permission to do so without feeling guilty. Instead I am going to enjoy a couple days of not getting up at 4:15am. Besides, stepping back from 4-5 hours of workouts each day frees up more time for me to prep for Mexico.

As Thursday is our travel day I will not be posting again until Saturday. Hopefully by then I will have a positive update on my ankle.