Poll dance

My left Achilles injury is starting to piss me off. It used to only hurt when I ran, but now it’s starting to bother me on the bike, too. Not right away, but usually after 5-10 miles…sooner if I’m out of the saddle much at all. In the spin class this morning, it started aching pretty much immediately, and was bad enough by the end of class that I skipped the standing intervals during the last 5 minutes. I think part of it was that my cleat positioning was not ideal…I just put the SPDs back on this morning, after swapping them out for eggbeater cleats for the urban assault race, and I put the left one too far toward the inside. My cleats feel more comfortable pushed all the way to the outside, but I always forget that when I’m screwing the things on. Of course, the real solution is not to take them off in the first place; but for this one-time event, I figured that switching out the cleat on my walkable shoes was easier than switching the pedals on my bike. And now my ankle is throbbing, and if it keeps up like this I’m afraid that I’m going to have to give up all weight-bearing exercise for a while.

Or will I? I mean, I don’t know. Up until 4 years ago, I avoided doing anything that might make me sweat. I don’t know jack about sports medicine (or sports, really), and other than twisting my ankle every now and then or dealing with my weak right knee, I haven’t really had any experience with nursing an injury. All I do know is that my 3 weeks’ break from running was not long enough for the original problem to heal, and now what little running I did do has made it worse.

Since I don’t know how to proceed, I thought I’d throw it up to a poll. So readers—have at it:

Well you didn't list this one as an option on your poll but it seems like the most obvious choice to me: Swim it. Or deep water aerobics.

AND, go to the doctor. Good luck!

*smacks forehead* yes! completely forgot about swimming...thanks!

Besides my ridiculous high copay, I'm hesitant to see a doctor because I'm afraid they'll tell me that I need to stay away from exercise for 6 weeks or whatever. Working out is the only thing that's maintaining my weight right now, and I'm afraid that once that goes by the wayside, there'll be nothing to stop me from gaining back all the weight I've lost in the past 4 years. I mean, it's bad enough that I've gained back 20...I certainly don't want to go back the rest of the way.

The obvious answer to this is to really watch what I'm eating....and I'm doing that. It's just that historically, I've been really bad at it. *sigh*

But yeah...swimming! That'll work. :)

This post wasn't about what I thought it was going to be about.