silence

I'm not of the loquacious kind. Late last night it occurred to me that I had published five posts to this blog in as many days. That was it, I thought, 'nuff said, that's it for a while. There's no need to apply a tourniquet to my neck; the excessive verbal efflux can be stemmed in other ways: Football in the pub, a night at the symphony, the movies at home, a book. But when I got home tonight, I couldn't resist yet another story.

In my mailbox I found the 2011 London Marathon race info, a fat magazine of nearly 200 pages full of advertisement, charity shout-outs, last-minute getting-ready frenzy and, go figure, race info. The thing couldn't have come at a better time.

Race info + kit

For the past week, I've been laboring with a sprained ankle. When it happened, late last Thursday, I feared I'd have to cancel London. That's how bad the pain was. The next morning, the ankle felt better but didn't look good, swollen to the size of a small grapefruit. I took it easy on the weekend, applying bandages and unguent and resting. The ankle slowly improved.

The swelling was still there this morning, but I couldn't wait any longer. I thought I'd test my ankle in the park, reasoning that the forward-rolling motion of running wouldn't interfere in the least with the healing of a laterally injured tendon.

I did one lap around the perimeter, a meager four miles, slowly. It wasn't quite all right, but it didn't hurt too much, and it didn't feel worse after the run than before. I had lunch at my desk with a strategically placed bag of lab ice on my left foot just in case. When I got up to go back to the bench an hour or so later, the swelling was completely, and miraculously, gone.

London will take place with me. The pack I got today reminded me that only one month of preparation remains. It offers helpful advice of how to make the most of it, noting that it's almost time to taper and decrease the effort, so as to focus all energy on the big day. Having done hardly any sustained running so far, I'll have to push a bit harder. I'll have to go out this weekend for at least four hours and probably again the next one. There won't be any time for gratuitous blogging for a while.