Injury Number 39 This Time It’s the AITFL
/10 Things I Think About Being Injured Again
1. Par for the Course
I think that getting injured is just a part of being a runner. Nearly everyone gets injured at some point or another and if they haven’t it’s probably more due to good luck than any fancy exercises.
2. Stupidity
I think that it is very easy to assume that all injuries are down to stupidity. Yes I did get injured doing a 5 mile road race fours days after running a marathon but I think my ankle ligament would have torn in the Midleton 5 mile whether I had done the marathon or not. It’s impossible to know anyway but I felt as good as I have ever felt before doing the race. I remember going over on my ankle during the warm up around the grass of Market Green, then running the race and afterwards my ankle was sore. No warning signs.
3. Zwift
I think that Zwift is a revelation for injured runners. Turbo training on a bike used to be a form of torture now it is merely not as good as running. I have learned over the years that there is no point staying too fit when you are injured, it is better to just do enough to be able to run 5 or 6 miles comfortably once the injury is better, 45 to 50 minutes on the bike everyday is more than enough for this. To avoid boredom I did sessions most days.
4. MRI
I think that MRI results are pretty irrelevant yet crucial for maintaining sanity while injured. It is very helpful to know what the actual injury is. I was pretty sure I didn’t have a stress fracture like I have had before because the symptoms were very different, I only had pain when I dorsiflexed (pulled up) my right foot. The electrical pain of a stress fracture wasn’t there. The MRI showed that I was partially right as it showed a partial tear of the AITFL and some related bone oedema.
5. Chicken or Egg
I think that the only reason I care which came first the AITFL tear or the bone oedema is that the AITFL tear wouldn’t be due to stupidity and more due to bad luck whereas the bone oedema resulting in the partial tear of the AITFL would indicated a stupidity related injury. I asked ChatGPT via Perplexity what was more likely and it said that an AITFL tear nearly always causes bone oedema and it would be unlikely for bone oedema to lead to a partial tear so I was happy.
6. Six to Eight Weeks
I think that if I was opening a physio practice I would call it six to eight weeks. If you get injured enough to not be able to run and requiring an MRI it is going to be at least six to eight weeks. You can hope for four but that is very unlikely. I fooled myself by aiming for four weeks of Zwift then just adding a week until it felt nearly better.
7. Test Run
I think that there is no harm in doing a test run, I did a test run after six weeks to see if I was magically better which was an abject failure, I could run but my ankle felt like it was going to rip apart. Back to Zwift.
8. Still Swollen
I think that it is amazing how long it takes for the swelling from an injury to go away. 10 weeks later and my leg was still swollen, it felt perfect walking around so I tried another test run. This one went better so I added a few more runs until eventually I got back running everyday just in time for holidays in Font Romeu.
9. Lumps and Bumps
I think that while I don’t have any tattoos I have lots and lots of injury markers. My legs are covered in lumps and bumps from all the niggles and injuries over the years. My inside right ankle was swollen for 5 years after I went over it in a cross country race in Galway 9 years ago so god only knows how long the outside of the same ankle will be swollen for.
10. Comeback
I think that getting back to running is great fun. It is kind of nice to be unfit and feel the progress every run. It doesn’t take long, 8 weeks and it is pretty much back to close enough to where you were before. The only thing that doesn’t go away is the fear, the fear of having to go back on Zwift, that takes about a year to go away and then the madness can resume again once you start to think that injuries only happen to other people because you have the exercise that keeps the injuries away.
