Limp

My Facebook feed was full of posts about the Brighton Half Marathon yesterday, which means my half marathon PB is now a mammoth four years old.  It’s past the toddler stage and soon it will be going to school, and before you know it, it’ll be up and away and gone to university and then I’ll never catch it again.

I originally booked the Surrey Half as an opportunity to challenge that PB but I think we can safely say that has gone out of the window and I’m still in two minds about whether I should even make it as far as the start line.  After last week’s experiment at the track I’m pretty sure I *could* make it round, but if that means a painful, unenjoyable race that makes the injury worse, there’s not a lot of point.

I finally managed to get a clinic appointment but it’s for the end of April so I decided to take up my mother’s offer to pay for an MRI and it’s scheduled for this Thursday.  I’m 90% certain that it’s going to come back saying that I have PTTD (posterior tibial tendon dysfunction) but the important thing is how bad it is and whether my tendon is torn, swollen or falling apart at the seams.  The consequences could be anything from cutting mileage and using insoles and supports and stuff (I am already doing this) to six weeks in a boot (oh god) to a horrible operation which is likely to put a stop to my running for good.  I can’t even bear to think about the latter option, and I have a feeling it will come to this at some point, but hopefully not for another few decades.

Meanwhile, I haven’t run for a whole week, and I keep thinking it is getting better until I actually try to do something with it.  I think the pain is getting better but the floppiness is getting worse.  I went to a gig on Saturday night and found that I couldn’t dance because the simple bopping foot movement just wasn’t there any more, and the weight of my boots (not New Rocks, just an ordinary pair of flat soled boots from River Island) was too much.  I was also momentarily pleased when I found the zip on said boots did up a lot easier than it used to until I put the right one on and it was just as tight as ever and I realised I must have lost muscle on my left leg.  Ugh.

My worry right now is this is just going to get worse and worse and that the 2016 Brighton Half is going to forever be my PB, and that I might already have run my last half marathon and that eventually I won’t be able to run any more at all, even parkrun, and then I will have to get a new hobby or start having romantic relationships with other human beings, or something else equally unspeakable and all hell will break loose.  Let’s hope I am wrong.