ouch

A few days ago I cracked my ankle over whilst taking part in a local bootcamp fitness class at Maes Y Pant. I was wearing regular padded running trainers (the pair I bought when I first started running before switching to barefoot in the FiveFingers and never looking back) because I was waiting to justify spending £130 on a trailrunningmudrunner pair of FiveFingers suitable and safe enough for the very sharp stones and rocks around there, and didn't feel a slippysawn-off tree stump sticking up an inch from the trail in front of me until it was too late and my weight had shifted too far over it. I slipped, twisted my ankle over and in an instant my ankle did an impression of a ripe-to-burst mango and I was forced to hop back to the park entrance and wait for ladySp33d and her dad to drop me off at A&E.

A couple of hours and 3 x-rays later and I was back home, nursing my war wounds and kicking back the RICE/ibuprofen/whiskey combo, thanking my luckies that I at least hadn't broken anything but feeling incredibly sorry for myself at the prospect of missing out on my ballot place at The Great North Run in September and the Chester Metric Marathon in October which I'd entered earlier this week.

Ankle is still in agony - a double sprain, level 2 apparently - but already semi-walkable now with the aid of a grandad stick and icepacks and a bellyful of codeine. Not sure how long my recovery will take yet - the nurse said 6-8 weeks before I can run again - but because I run barefoot-style the muscles in my calves and feet are stronger so I may recover a lot quicker, but I'm sceptical. I'm certainly not having any illusions that I'll be running again very soon, that's for sure. Which is a hard pill to swallow.