After injuring the peroneal tendon in my left foot at Diez Vista in early April, I had been restricted to the pool for the first few weeks of recovery as I reported last month. I was starting to enjoy swimming to a certain degree but being stuck inside was the worst.
In May, I was finally able to start biking, first mostly on the indoor trainer and later on longer road rides. About a week and a half ago, I was able to start hiking again which had meant almost daily trips up the BCMC, because anything worth doing is worth overdoing. It’s been great to get outside again consistently with some of the friends I hadn’t seen in a while.
I’ve managed to stay involved with the community by volunteering at races, something I’d highly encourage everyone to do, not only when injured but when tapering, recovering, or any other time you can’t participate. It’s also a great way to pay it forward and to give back to the sport.
I helped out at the 5 Peaks Trail Running booth at BMO Vancouver Marathon expo, where CLIF Bar and Peak Centre Vancouver also both had a booth, and then volunteered at the 5 Peaks Golden Ears trail race. I then helped out with finish line timing for Rainshadow Running’s Sun Mountain 50 miler down in Winthrop, since I had planned on going down there to race anyway and I didn’t want to miss out on all the race weekend fun. I brought my bike with me and was able to get in a great ride through the valley.
I did a couple of short tests on the treadmill, no more than 1 km, but it was clear that the ankle isn’t quite ready for running just yet.
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- First steps.
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- CLIF Bar at the Vancouver Marathon Expo.
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- The Salomon demo fleet.
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- 5 Peaks Golden Ears.
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- The North Cascades.
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- Sun settings after Sun Mountain 50 Miler.
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- Cycling in Winthop.
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- The Methow Valley, near Winthrop.
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- Hiking the BCMC.
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- View from Grouse Mountain.
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- Cycling in the rain.
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- Cycling in Squamish with Chloe & Munny.
Final Stats for May:
- Distance Run/Hiked: 16 km
- Time-on-Feet: 5 hrs
- Elevation Gain: 4,200 m
- Cross Training: 13x bike (345 km in 14 hrs), 4x swim, 5x strength
I’m hoping that in my June recap I’ll be able to report on all of the running I’m finally doing again, but for now I’m taking it one week at a time and will be focusing on hiking and on vert. I’ll keep ‘testing’ the foot on the treadmill in very small amounts until I can confidently take it out on a short run which I’m really hoping will be as early as next week.
In the meantime, I’ll be volunteering again at this weekend’s 5 Peaks Alice Lake and helping out with the demo fleet at the Salomon Running tent. Be sure to stop by and try out a pair of the new Salomon Sense Ultra SG, and there are still lots of volunteers needed in case you’re not racing! Either way, it should be a great day out on the trails.