Ankle-versary

So, we've reached the one year anniversary of my ankle surgery.  I would consider my "ankle-versary" to be May 8th, since that's when I actually tore it, but since I didn't have the surgery until the 17th, which would be the real date of when the healing started, that's the day.

I can't promise that this will be my last post that mentions the Achilles tear, but I will promise that it will be the last one solely dedicated to it.  It's time to put things in perspective, put things in their place, and put things in the rear-view mirror.  I'm about 90% recovered, and I'm getting better every day.  I still notice the fact of the injury every time I have to make a quick movement, but I can walk without pain and have been able to run and do plyometric workouts without too much trouble.

There is, of course, the psychological effects to deal with.  My ankle is strong enough to do pretty much everything I'd want to do with it.  Since last fall, I've run six laps at three different regular Tough Mudder events, and another six laps at WTM.  I've finished various rounds of Insanity, Asylum and T25, and I've been able to run a long run while averaging sub-10 minute miles, so, I would assume that this means that the physical part of the recovery is pretty close to done, but learning to trust the ankle again isn't coming as quickly.  I still find myself being overly careful when getting down off of obstacles - most notably, Berlin Walls.  The drop is a bit scary because I'm not sure how my ankle will react to a sudden jolt. This might not be a bad thing, obviously.  Being cautious around obstacles is good practice.  I don't want to be careless and put myself in physical danger if it can be avoided.

I guess this is the big lesson that I would take away from this.  Although it's appropriate to be cautious, we have to make sure that caution doesn't control us to the detriment of being adventurous as well.  We should always be open to the possibility that the next step could hurt, but isn't it more important that we think about the journey that step can lead to as well?  If we paralyze ourselves thinking about all of the bad things that can happen, then we needlessly close ourselves off from a lot of possibilities to do amazing things.

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141 Days...the Most Heroic Mudder.

The total number of days between Friday, May 17th, 2013 and Saturday, October 5th, 2013 is 141 days.  I tore my Achilles on the 8th of May, but I didn't have surgery until the 17th, so that's the date that I'm using as the starting point for my recovery.  That means that it was 20 weeks and 1 day, or 4 months and 18 days, between my surgery and my first Mudder.  I'm not sure how impressive that is, but for an injury that is supposed to take as much as 18 months before you're fully yourself again, I feel pretty good about it. 

A couple thoughts:

Me and Simon (first time Mudder) after crossing the finish line

• The venue in Seattle was absolutely beautiful.  It was just over 11 miles, and was run in a Quarry.  It didn't have any new obstacles, but it tested my ability as much as any other course so far.  There were A LOT of blackberry bushes, and they could have caused some serious headaches with all of their thorns, but otherwise the course was very nice.
• I was expecting the course to be more mountainous, but it ended up being relatively flat and wooded.  There were a few steep inclines, but nothing too bad.  The worst part of the inclines was a series of slides and climbs out of a watery ditch.  The sides of the slope were so steep it was impossible to go slowly, and most people ended up sliding down into the ankle-deep water at the bottom of 15-foot inclines.  I refused to slide because I didn't know what the water held and I didn't want to hurt my ankle, so I ended up going really slow. 

Approaching the Electroshock Terapy, the finish line and beer!

• Speaking about the series of inclines, this was perhaps the silliest obstacle in terms of causing a backup and injuries.  While I was doing them, we had at least one person require medical assistance (in fact, I was able to throw my first X up).  When we came back around the course and stopped at a water station relatively close by, we were told that injuries had been happening all day long at that obstacle - one of the girls at the water station said she had been there 10 minutes and medical had been needed 3 times in that 10 minutes.
• My ankle held up pretty well.  Although I fell while doing the rings, the only obstacle I felt beat me was Everest.  I made an attempt, but I couldn't get enough speed to really do it.  I probably could have tried again, but I kind of jammed my foot while going back down the ramp so I figured I'd live to fight another day.

The official Seattle TM Course map.

• The electrical obstacles weren't all that bad.  I got zapped on Electroshock Therapy, but I didn't get hit at all on the electric eel.  Hopefully, that's not simply tempting the electrical currents in my next event to hit me extra hard.
• I came out of my Saturday run with relative few bruises.  The only two bruises I had were caused by carrying a rather bulky waterproof video camera in my pocket...it would bounce around while I was running and caused two pretty big bruises on my thighs.  I think I could have done the Sunday run, which I had registered for, but I would have had to run it by myself.  That's not nearly as much fun as it might sound, so I decided I would spend time with my sister, niece and father.
• This was the first mudder that I've run where spectators came to see me run.  My father, sister and niece were in attendance, and got to enjoy the 2-mile spectator route through the course.  I think it was as muddy as what I had to run, but they seemed to enjoy it.
• I still can't believe that I'm the first one of the three authors of this blog to actually complete a Tough Mudder course since my injury.  That's gotta count for something.  

Our custom has been to provide a superlative for each of the mudders that we run.  For example, Wintergreen was The Toughest, Mid-Atlantic was The Windiest, and Miami was The Coldest.  When Danny asked me what the superlative for Seattle was, without hesitation I said it was the Most Heroic.  Running a Tough Mudder with a surgically repaired Achilles less than 5 months after surgery is easily worth 3 headbands, but I wish the boys luck this weekend with their little Blackjack - if the weather allows it, of course.

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The Long Road

My Achilles surgery has been set for 12:30 tomorrow afternoon, and I'm counting that as the start of the long road back.  I find it interesting that this will be almost exactly six months before WTM, which, theoretically would give me time to heal and prepare to participate.  Of course, as the eternal Yogi Berra said "In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is."  Whatever theoretical plans we have for our lives, the theory is always overwhelmed by the practical aspects of living that life.  Life is messy, and it requires us to adapt to an ever-changing situation.  The issue is whether you see the mess and think of it as being the reason for your problems or a challenge that you can overcome.  I'm thinking that this is a challenge to overcome.  When I asked my doctor if WTM would be a possibility, his response was "If you said September, I'd say no way...if you said January, I'd say no problem."  Everything in between is where the mess lies.

Let's face it, no one ever wants to get injured, and the older we get, the more difficult it is to bounce back from the various hurts and injuries we suffer.  I have no illusions that my health will last forever.  I don't expect to be doing Tough Mudders when I'm 80 (although, it would be pretty bad-ass).  I had a long talk with my brother yesterday, and he offered his experience as an object lesson.  He played high school football for four years, then graduated and started playing organized rugby, which he played for 15 years or so.  Two decades of collisions, cuts, bruises, injuries, and waking up to do it all over again took their toll on him.  He wanted to make sure that I wasn't going to let myself fall into that trap.  As much as I appreciate the advice, and intend to pay attention to it, there's a part of me (and if I'm honest, it's a damn big part of me) that says that it won't happen to me.  Perhaps it's ego...perhaps it's naivete...perhaps it's simply a better understanding of my own limits and potential, but I don't see this Achilles injury as the end of my trip.  It's a big hurdle...the biggest Berlin Wall I've ever approached...but it's something I know I can tackle and overcome. 

Just to be clear, though, I intend to be smart about the recovery.  As much as it would hurt to miss WTM this year, I'm not going to trade permanent injury for the opportunity to participate.  But, as I said in my last post, if that is to happen, 2014 better watch out, because I'll come back with an attitude.

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Hurt Versus Injured

This has, perhaps, been the most difficult post to write because it means that I've had to resign myself to being out of commission for a while.  First, the back story: last Wednesday I met with Danny and Brian to do an interval track workout that they have been doing for a while now. We jogged a bit, went through a series of 100 meter track exercises, some burpees, some standing box jumps (although these weren't really box jumps because we were jumping up onto a low wall), ran some more, did some stairs, and then went to another series of 100 meter track exercises.  There were various exercises on the track, and I won't bore anyone with what each 100 meter activity was, but each time around the track included a 100 meter sprint.  Our goal was to have run each track activity 8 times total.  All was going well, until the final sprint.  About half way through, I felt a pop and went down like a sack of wet oatmeal.  I'm pretty sure that I knew it was bad before I even hit the ground (which, luckily was wet so I didn't end up with any road rash from sliding and rolling to a stop).  To both Danny and Brian's credit, both of them stopped to see how I was rather than finish their sprint - and more importantly, neither of them raised the X on me (even though this would have been the ideal time to do it for a good laugh).

Doesn't look that bad, does it?

Anyone who has been involved with any kind of intense exercise will know the difference between being hurt and being injured.  Being hurt means you rub some dirt on it and keep going.  Maybe you have to rest for a little while.  Maybe you have to rest for a long while.  But the end result is that you're more or less whole and just have to either adjust to the pain or wait for the pain to go away.  Being injured, on the other hand, is something that puts you out of action for a while.  Perhaps it requires a cast.  Maybe it requires a surgery.  Maybe there's some physical therapy involved.  Well, it looks like all three of those things are on my To Do list.

I've got the diagnosis, and an MRI, and I've been told that I have either a complete or near complete tear of my left Achilles tendon along with a complete tear of my Talofibular ligament.  I see the orthopedic surgeon tomorrow, and will know more about the next steps after that appointment.  I'm steeling myself for the surgery that I expect to come sometime in the next week.

This is what I think of my MRI

Obviously, I'm disappointed.  The funny thing about it, though, is that the physical pain isn't all that bad.  It didn't even really hurt that much when it happened.  Trying to walk on it is a different story, but as long as I'm not trying to stand on my toes, then there isn't any physical pain.  I'm taking medicine to combat swelling, but I don't need it for pain relief. There is, however, the disappointment of missing events with my Mudder Brudders, and I'm not sure how I'll feel seeing them finish events without me, tell me stories of the crazy folks that they've met (on and off the course), and see them progress - all while I go through the inevitable physical therapy to rebuild my leg.  Don't get me wrong, I wish them both the best...I just wish I could be there to witness and be part of it.

I've never been injured like this before.  I had a knee surgery in 2008, but that was before I started getting in shape so it was mostly an inconvenience.  I got to spend some time in my bed strapped to a CPM machine, but otherwise I wasn't missing out on much.  This is different.  This injury will put me out of commission for the Virginia Beach Mudder at a minimum.  That fact alone is bad enough, but it gets worse because there's no set recovery time.  I've read that it can be as little as 4 months and as much as a year.  My goal is to recover in time to do the Seattle event at the beginning of October, follow that up with the Mid-Atlantic mudder at the end of October, and be ready for WTM in November.  That would put me at about the 6 month mark from the injury, and I may be being naive to think that it's possible, but at this point I have to have a goal to work towards.  Without that goal, I may just give up, eat Mudslide Ice Cream, and gain back the 40 lbs I've lost.

There's no lessons here for education or leadership - at least not yet.  I'm still processing the event, and although I'll doubtlessly learn lessons from the recovery, I'm just in the early stages of coming to terms with what has happened.  I won't lie...it's been emotional, but it's also not the worst thing that could ever happen to me.  Lots of people have it worse than I do, and this injury is something that I will recover from.  It may not be quickly, but eventually I'll be as good as I was before. If I don't recover in time for WTM 2013 then 2014 better watch out because I'll be pissed about missing out.

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