Blake Bennions running

Bought a hydraulic rowing machine off Facebook marketplace and gave it a go tonight. I went about as hard as the machine would let me go and worked up buckets of sweat but my heart rate apparently only averaged 119 with a max of 150... I think that seems too low for how hard it felt but who knows. Machine is nice because I can do modified rows where I don't use my legs at all while my ankle is healing... wish the resistance went a little higher.

40 minutes of rowing. PA at the sports medicine/orthopedist office says it's most likely broken but it's possible what they're seeing on the x ray is scar tissue from previous injuries to this ankle. He said it doesn't really matter for recovery, best case scenario I'm back to running in 4-6 weeks. I assume that means like baby jogging with an ankle brace for a mile at first- but if I could be there by the end of July that would be incredible.

Got a somewhat beat up 21 gear bike for $40 on Facebook marketplace today and found a free training block. I can bike and swim and walk in my boot, which is a lot better than waiting 6 weeks to do anything but rowing like I'd feared.

30 minutes of rowing.

31 minutes of biking. Felt good but I kept my broken ankle flexed the whole time to avoid any sudden movements or flipping of the pedal which made my ankle pretty sore.

I actually consistently got up to aerobic heart rate level for most of the bike. It's really hard to get above even 120 on the rowing machine. I'm thinking I'll do 15-20 minute warm up rowing and then 30-45 minutes biking most days. I think I'll preserve a lot of my fitness and be back in at least as good of shape by September.

15 minutes row warm up

47 minutes on the bike averaging heart rate of 146

Ankle definitely seems broken, I can feel it more clearly now that the inflammation has gone down a bit.

10 minute row 118 hr

39 minute bike 124 hr (seems low)

36 minute bike 146 hr

11-12 minute row at apparently 140 hr

50 minute bike at 144 hr

15 minutes Rowing at 134 hr

47 minutes biking at 144 hr

About 100 minutes biking, actually went up to the canal road and rode while Kolten and Jake ran.

30 minutes rowing and core.

32 minutes biking at 139 average heart rate. I broke the big gear shifter on my bike trying to get it back to a lower gear... the smaller one still works and I was still able to get a solid workout.

My ankle is feeling really good, I'm hoping they misdiagnosed the break... twice lol. The PA at the last appointment did say there was a chance the misty stuff was just scar tissue. Either way my ankle is feeling like 90% better. I can walk without a brace, each day this past week was like a new milestone of ankle progress. Getting back to running 2 weeks after the injury would be an amazing outcome... Running at Des news feels possible but I won't push it unless I'm feeling virtually 100% and even then will probably wear some form of support.

I've decided long term I need to replace the crappy cross training equipment with decent stuff and make that part of my training schedule.

Doctor said I'm recovering super quickly and can start running this week.

Mile with Jake at the track. Went pretty well, split it up into 2 quarter miles and a half mile. The brace sucks to run with and I think I'll just tape it up tonight and try another mile to see how that feels, it hurts my Achilles to run in the brace because it restricts back and forth ankle movement too much and cuts into my upper ankle with the supports.

35 minutes biking, 138 average heart rate.

Felt pretty good today once that I readjusted my new brace so it wasn't squeezing my metatarsal. Still doesn't feel as good as before the injury of course, especially with a brace- but it was a big improvement from yesterday. I'll try out the kt tape once I get to runs of 4+ miles, I think that will feel much better to run on.

The other thing that's been interesting to me is that I've had a bit of shit splint type pain for my non injured leg come up during my recovery, especially when I was in crutches and had hard landings on my foot. Maybe why this happens (which it hasn't for a long time) is because when I'm standing around I generally shift my weight to my right foot and that probably results in a lot more stress on those bones... I'm going to try and balance that out more and hopefully those shin splints go away with the sprain.

35 minutes biking after the run

Felt better than yesterday. Even went sub 8 for mile 3. All miles on the track, I'm going to stay in the track tomorrow and probably for most of Saturday and Sunday as well just to be safe. I think I'll do one more day in the brace and then Saturday I'll try running with tape.

I'm think I'll at least jog the Des News 10k so that's exciting. Planning to just go by feel for all my runs until my ankle 100%, I'll start throwing in strides once it doesn't feel weak in the back of my ankle- which might just be once I take off the brace. I can't tell.

PM:

10 minutes rowing at 110 hr

32 minutes biking at 135 hr

Think I'll take tomorrow off from cross training and only do my run. I also did a 30 minute contrast therapy thing for my ankles after cross training. 10 mins hot water in a bath, 1-2 minutes cold water, and then 3x switching off between 4-5 minutes hot and 1 minute cold. Actually felt amazing and left my legs feeling incredibly smooth. Gonna try doing a full body version of this some day.

Felt great today. Averaged 7:44 and got up to 6:45 pace for a lap. About an hour or two after my run I felt a little pain in the back right of my ankle. I was thinking I'd take Sunday as a rest day but I might move that up to Saturday because my Asics nimbus 27s are arriving Sunday and I'm excited to try those out. I went way over mileage on the current pair of adrenalines and have been running in my tempus 2s this week- which aren't ideal recovery shoes.

Some running while I walked with Becca and Whitney. I did a stride and got down to sub 6 pace for a bit. Ankles felt a little off today, I'm going to try kt tape instead of the compression sleeve/brace tomorrow.

Warmed up with Landon and Jake and then did 5x2 minutes on 2 minutes off on the track. Well they did 6 but I took the 5th one off to stretch out my ankle. Paces were 5:34, 5:27, 5:21, 5:18, 5:13. So overall I guess close to 2 miles at goal 10k pace. Not that I will be racing that pace on Thursday haha, especially with how that pace felt today in terms of my fitness. I'm sure all the biking and rowing has helped preserve some fitness but nothing fully replaced running. I think it will take another 2-3 weeks to get back to normal. I'll try some downhill road running tomorrow and Wednesday and if that feels good I'll run the 10k but I'm not planning to race it.

I tried the kt tape today and my ankle felt pretty good, a lot better than yesterday. It's really just the back of my ankle that's still bothering me a bit and that comes and goes.

Easy run with 4 strides. Felt increasingly good on each stride, but not to the point that the pace felt smooth or easy. I've been doing almost all of my miles on the track so far, so tomorrow I'll test out doing a couple of downhill road miles. Worst case scenario if my ankle starts hurting during Des news I can just go over to 700 east and walk jog over to liberty park.

Ran up and down shady lane a couple times. Warm up felt a little stiff and my ankle felt a little weak, not painful.

Once I'd warmed up 1.5 miles I put on my race shoes to see how those felt and they felt better than my trainers- like about 100%. I ran a quarter mile downhill on shady lane in 77 seconds and it felt great. No pain and the pace felt easy and very sustainable. There's a reasonable chance I could actually race tomorrow. I will just go by feel tomorrow, if I'm feeling good and no pain maybe I'll try a couple of fast miles. If I'm feeling some ankle pain I'll slow down or stop altogether.

Came in today open to racing for a pr or stopping early on in the race and walking to liberty park. I'd give this outcome an A-. I felt perfect warming up and doing strides so I decided to give it a shot today. My one big misstep pre-race was that without thinking I tried jumping hard as part of my pre-race dynamics and that hurt my ankle a bit. No lingering pain though so I decided to test it out.

First two miles were 10:06 and I felt really good, but my ankle started hurting so I backed off to a pace where it felt better- happened to be about 5:50. I stayed there for most the rest of the run. My quads still got absolutely destroyed from this run, I haven't done any downhill in a month and the bike does not work your quads that way. The people I was around at mile 2 ended up finishing just over or under 32:00 so I'm excited for peach days when I'm fully healthy and have more workout in me. Obviously it's a much slower course, but the upside of running a relatively slow time today is that I can almost definitely PR my 10k at Peach days with hopefully a sub 34.

Unfortunately tripped on a stick walking out of liberty park and hurt my ankle a bit after the race was over so its a little sore now, but pretty minor setback. I think I'll be fine to run tomorrow honestly but will take it off if it's hurting in the morning.

Legs were so sore, slow jog around Lora and Georges neighborhood.

Legs probably weren't recovered enough for this. I did half the workout today, was supposed to be 2x 6 mins, 4 mins, 2 mins with 2 minutes recovery between each. I ran high 5 minute pace for each rep and felt very sore afterwards. I think a bath tonight will make everything feel much better.

Easy run. Tried road running with no brace/tape. Not ready for that quite yet, the back inside of my ankle kept bugging me. My ankle generally still feels fairly loose but that is the only part of it that still hurts.

Warmed up a little over a mile and did 25 minutes of Jake's 28 minute tempo at like marathon pace in the wind. Was a slow tempo but felt rough. Had to stop a couple of times to stretch my ankle, not a great tape job today.

Really hoping that by the end of August I'll be feeling 100% and as fast as I was in June.