Turn And Face The Sprains

Number of times I'd sprained something in the first 37 years of my life: zero

Number of times I've sprained something since turning 37: two

That's right, gang - I am now on my second sprain in a five-week span! In mid-October I very mildly sprained my left ankle. That was a bummer indeed, as I had two half marathons on consecutive weekends right after that. It healed quickly, though, and without causing too much damage to either my ankle or my overall training schedule.

Last Wednesday, I went to the ninja gym to start my big off-season training. I was determined to improve my grip strength and my balance. Things started out great, but then after about 40 minutes I went to step on a balance obstacle that I've done dozens of times without incident, and instead of stepping on it with my midfoot, I stepped on it with my toe. Which then slipped off. And my whole body went topsy-turvy and I hit the ground. Pretty quickly I realized I would need to ice this, so I cut my workout short and went straight home. Despite icing and elevating, it got worse and worse, and after a few hours I could barely even limp. Putting any weight on it was horrible.

I went to urgent care and got x-rays, just to make sure I didn't break a metatarsal. Nothing is broken, but my foot is definitely sprained, and probably a much more severe sprain than my left ankle was. Wednesday and Thursday I could barely put any weight on it. Friday was a bit better, as I was able to hobble around with just one crutch and putting some weight on my lateral heel. Throughout the weekend it got better and better, and today I can mostly get around fine (although I still definitely favor my left foot, and I'm using one crutch as a cane whenever I need to go on stairs or long distances).

Having never dealt with a bad soft-tissue injury before this, it has been truly fascinating to see how it works. What has worked for me to start recovering so quickly?

1) Very little movement for the first 72 hours. I got fewer than 1000 steps each of those first few days.

2) Elevating the foot as much as possible. I laid on the couch basically all day long with my foot up on the back of the couch.

3) Icing religiously. Every two hours in the first 72 hours, now down to every 3-4 hours.

4) Gentle stretching. I'm working through the range of motion that my foot is capable of doing. If something hurts, I stop.

5) Proper footwear. When I had to go out in the first 72 hours, I wore a boot. Now, I wear regular shoes, but with the laces loosened almost as much as possible on the right foot.

6) Crutches. I had to use both in the first couple days, but now I'm down to using one as a cane just for support.

Normally a sprain can take up to six weeks to fully recover, but I am optimistic that I can be back to normal activity after about 3-4 weeks. In the meantime, I've been doing some upper body and ab work, and was able to incorporate hand cycling (my gym has a machine) and some hip flexor work as well. I probably won't be back to the ninja gym for at least 4 weeks, which is a bummer, but I don't want to do any activity that might require me to land on my feet from a height. Biggest lesson learned: DON'T BE A DAMN KLUTZ!

This Is Spartan Ultra Episode 12

Three days of fall training. What could possibly go wrong?

Race Recap: Spartan Stadion Wrigley Field

Spartan Stadion Wrigley Field 11/16/19 Chicago, IL

Weather: 38 degrees, cloudy

Terrain: MLB stadium - concrete and stairs

Distance: 3.1 miles, 21 obstacles

 Course map - incomplete, of course

After deferring Michigan, I had two credits that I needed to use, so I signed up for two laps at Wrigley Field because 1) I enjoy stadium races and hadn't done one this year, and 2) it's within driving distance. Thankfully I downloaded a parking-spot reservation app (I used ParkWhiz) and got a spot across the street from Wrigley reserved for only $8. Parking around the stadium is a disaster so I highly recommend this method. Upon check-in I was told that I would need to come back out after my first lap to check in for my next one, which is different from my past two-lap experiences. Caveat emptor. Stashed my bag in the free check and lined up for lap number one. Remember, stadion races = 15 reps for everything (if the obstacle has reps, or if you have to do burpees).

As usual in stadiums, we started by going up a ramp, which had a low crawl. Easy bear crawl for about 100 feet, then into a very long section of stairs. Thankfully Wrigley is not a particularly tall stadium, but they wound us through a good amount of stairs before we finally came to obstacle number 2, a heavy jump rope. Feet unbound this year! Next obstacle was weighted burpees, wherein we have to hold a heavy tube (33 lb for women, 55 lb men) while we do our burpees. This is a new stadion obstacle this year and I didn't care for it. Here's why: most of us already do enough damn burpees. Don't make it mandatory. Next up was ball slams, 20 lb for women and 30 for men, before the easiest sandbag carry in stadion history (no stairs, just a ramp up and down). The bag was 40 lb for women as per Spartan's usual.

I hope I made it onto the Jumbotron at some point.

We came across a water stop, which would turn out to be the ONLY water stop in this race (it definitely needed another one at around mile 2). Immediately afterward was the start of what would turn out to be a fantastic gauntlet of one obstacle after another. First up was assault bike, where we needed to burn 15 calories (up from 10 last year). This one is easy if you take your time and find a bike with a good seat height. It took me about 2 1/2 minutes to burn my 15 calories, but I came off that bike able to jog out the stadium to the parking lot across the street where more obstacles were all lined up for us. Pipe Lair. Then atlas carry, which was big rubber balls instead of concrete (women's was 70 lb, men's 100). Z-walls came at the end of the lot, then we looped back to spear throw, which I missed. Fifteen burpees for the first time! (I'm not counting those infernal weighted burpees.)

Multi-rig had rings only, which is different from stadions I've done in the past which had rings and baseballs. Rings only was easy peasy, although the bells were set high so you needed to think ahead and generate a bigger backswing on that last ring. Herc hoist afterward was a breeze, as was the 7-foot wall right before we re-entered the stadium. After some more ramps and stairs, we did another low crawl, this one a bit higher so you could basically just crouch and walk. Following that was a very long section of stairs, which included a ton of switchbacks through the rows of seats. One way, up two rows, the other way, go up two rows, etc etc for all eternity. The guy behind me was like "I'm just following you!" It felt like being in one of those rat mazes. Finally, we came inside past spectators in the festival area, then went down a stairwell to a locker room, where we did hand-release pushups in a nice warm room. It was like a photo-negative of the hand-release pushups I did at Busch Stadium, which were in a blissfully COLD locker room.

We exited through the dugout to the warning track (no feet on the "grass," which today was fairly snow-covered anyway) for the final gauntlet of obstacles. First was a series of five overwalls, then box jumps. The volunteer was not directing men to the men's height (about 21") for box jumps, oddly enough, so most folks were doing the 15" women's box. The watery sand/limestone stuff made this a bit hazardous but I still managed to actually box jump rather than do step-ups (which are legal). A-frame cargo next, then rope climb, which despite a bit of slop was quite easy even in my road shoes. The penultimate obstacle was monkey bars, which were tough. They were all at the same height, but there were 2-3 big transfers of over 3 feet, which definitely made a difference. I struggled with these on lap one, even missing a transfer and needing to save myself, but I made it through. The Gauntlet (punching bags) was the last obstacle and I was done in 1:03! That was a new stadion PR by 14 minutes. I felt awesome about this achievement.

This is my best monkey bars picture ever.

Couldn't bask too long, though - had to refuel (2/3rd of a FitAid and a banana), change shirts, register for lap 2 and change out my chip/headband. I was doing lap 2 with my friend Jenine, who was new to the glory of Spartan, so we got in the start corral and went to town on it! We hustled our way through all the obstacles and stairs, taking time to relax and have fun (Jenine wanted to try "slamming a man ball," for example). When we reached the spear throw, I went first to show Jenine the basic mechanics, and I STUCK MY SPEAR. Others cheered and I almost hit the ground with excitement. We managed to continue on, with Jenine doing an awesome job - although she was failing the toughest obstacles, she was doing her burpees remarkably quickly (much more quickly than I did mine on lap 1).

Finally we reached the finishing gauntlet, where we came upon Team Oscar Mike climbing the A-frame which caused a huge logjam. We weren't upset about it, though, these are disabled veterans, for god's sake. Plus it gave me a chance to recover after those box jumps. The delay cost us about 10-15 minutes, but then I scrambled up the rope climb with ease for the second time. While Jenine was finishing up her burpees, I said I was going to go for the monkey bars so that I wouldn't overthink it. I approached, remembering how tough they were on lap 1. Decided it would behoove me to do a faster approach, which I thought might help me keep momentum for the big transfers. So I did a hand-over-hand ape swing through, hit every transfer smoothly, and hit the bell with my left hand. I hung there from my right hand for a few seconds, with the reality of what had just happened sinking in. I ran a clean race. For the first time EVER. I turned around, saw Jenine smiling at me, dropped down, and basically burst into tears of joy. Jenine was proud. I was proud. Hugs all around. At this point I wondered if the photographer had captured any of this, LOL. Jenine made sure he got a celebratory picture, at any rate.

I'm not crying, YOU'RE crying (okay, I'm also crying)

We ran through the punching bags and finished in 1:29! Not bad considering our A-frame delay. Jenine kicked ass out there and I was so proud. It was quite the day for both of us! :) We met up with her boyfriend Steve, who managed to grab an entire case of Kodiak Bear Bites on the way out of the stadium (at the request of the volunteers! This was sanctioned thievery).

Two for two!

Pros:

-Great mix of obstacles. Most stadium races have a ton of walls and only one grip obstacle, but this one had better diversity.
-Not as ass-destroying as most stadium races, with the smaller staircases.
-Tight festival layout which was easy for spectators.

Cons:

-No BodyArmor. I love that stuff.
-Needed another water stop.
-The last section of switchbacks was borderline ridiculous.

Race Grade:  A-. Very well done with only a couple hiccups. Great diversity of obstacles and they did a good job of snow removal and de-icing.