Ironically, I was going to be writing about how to stay injury free while training for this week’s blog post.  Unfortunately, in the fifth mile of yesterday’s run up at Deer Creek Canyon, I rolled the daylights out of my ankle.  Now I’m going to share with you the strategies and methods I’ll be using to train through an injury.

How did this happen?  There I was having an amazing run hauling tail through the fastest section of my half marathon course (race day May 9th), when I misjudged my footing and landed on the side of a rock instead of missing it completely.  My ankle rolled off, I felt a pop and nearly collapsed.  Dang it!!!  I tried to walk it off only to hobble and thought, now what?  Oh yeah!  I remembered to do my MAT (muscle activation technique) “resets” we teach our patients to get my muscles firing again in that ankle, which will take the pressure off of any ligaments I may have just sprained.  I decided to try and run again knowing if I stopped moving things were only going to get worse.  It was painful but far less than just walking.  Running the rest of the Red Mesa Loop section, I quickly decided to not take Golden Eagle trail to save me a little distance with not knowing how well my ankle was going to hang in there.  When the pain would increase, I would stop to do more MAT resets, which took the edge off.  When I made it back down Plymouth Creek Trail to the intersection with Plymouth Mountain Trail, I was feeling okay and decided to push on instead of going the rest of the way back down to the car.  You’re probably thinking I’m a bit crazy at this point.  It’s true, I might be a glutton for punishment, but this was the only section I hadn’t run yet and wanted it under my belt before race day.  I only have one more training day up there prior to the race.  I stopped a couple more times to do my resets and pushed through the rest of the race course ending up back in the parking lot via Meadow Lark Trail 6 miles later.

When I got in the car, the pain really kicked in.  I couldn’t find a position of comfort at all.  I put my foot in the seat and did MAT on my leg and ankle the whole way home.  Once I got home, I immediately adjusted my ankle and took a couple of Advil (I rarely do but knew I was going to need the help initially).  I was already taking our T & L Repair (Tendon & Ligament) formula but increased the dosage to provide my body more of the nutrients necessary to repair the tissues I just injured.

My post-run shake included the following: PureShock Vegan, PureShock Hydrate, PureShock Protect (coming soon), L-glutamine, ground cinnamon, turmeric, ginger, black pepper and Great Lakes Kosher Gelatin.  I had my mom do MAT on my leg, iced and then put Rock Tape on to help keep the swelling out and assist a couple of muscles to do their job.  All in all, I wasn’t doing too bad at this point considering.

Today I woke up with no swelling!  YEAH!!!  Knowing what I know and having the ability to address the issues right away was critical.  If you have an injury occur, getting the biomechanics (how the body moves) addressed right away, within 72 hours, has been shown in research to really decrease your healing time.  Getting the joints moving properly again and the muscles firing correctly takes the stress off of the injured tissue and creates an optimal environment for healing to occur.  When I got into the office, I used the cold laser to help promote healing. I will continue to laser a few more times throughout the day each day this week.  Cold laser has been shown to decrease healing times by as much as 40%!  To learn more about why addressing these biomechanical compensation patterns is so important in not only training through an injury but also helping you stay injury free, check out this blog on our sister site Pure-Shock.com.

I also added in Acute DeFlam, which is a natural anti-inflammatory and will end up being the only anti-inflammatory that I take for the duration of this injury.  There is a lot you can do through diet as well to help reduce inflammation in the body.  To see what foods have been and will to continue to be a mainstay in my diet, read 5 Fantastic Foods for Reducing Inflammation.

Race day is in 4 Saturdays.  I will be ready to go with no problems thanks to consistent chiropractic, MAT and cold laser therapy, a diet that is as clean as possible and great in reducing inflammation and continued supplementation with the nutrients my body needs more now to heal the tissues that were damaged.  I am going to take a little time off to let the tissue heal and will then resume training in a controlled environment (treadmill next week and basement running thereafter).  If all is going well, I’ll go back to Deer Creek on May 1st to hit the hills for a short run prior to race weekend.  Stay tuned to learn how my regimen is working.  More importantly, to see how race day goes – Fear the Deer, here I come!