I haven’t run a step since May 1st. That day I needed to do a last, short taper run, before a race that was happening May 4th. I drove to my local trails, laced up and jogged out of the parking lot. One-hundred-and-fifty yards later, on flat ground, I rolled my ankle hard, felt two pops, and hit the deck. Normally, when I fall while running, I pop up, shake myself off and keep going, assuming whatever damage I may have incurred will fade as I go.

Instead, this time, I stayed down, my ankle screaming in pain, my mind reeling in disbelief. I looked around for something that might make sense of what happened, as if I’d been shot by a sniper, and I needed to locate the source of the danger. I stood, briefly, and then sat down again. The pain was intense, and I wasn’t sure I could limp back to the car, but I did.

What happened after is fairly banal. Most people reading this will have sprained an ankle at some point. What made this event different, and the reason I haven’t run a step since, is that this is not the first, second or third time I have sustained this injury. Running and playing soccer my whole life, sprained ankles have come frequently, so much so that I’m used to running on it when it’s swollen and sore, but not this time.

An X-ray told me that I had severe tenosynovitis in my foot, adjoining the sprain, and that there was a floating bone chip in my ankle from a previous fracture that doctors had missed. Also bone spurs. All of that explains the pain I’d been running through for last five years or so. The ensuing MRI confirmed that on top of the inflamed tendon sheath and bone problems, I also had two badly sprained ligaments running from the ankle up my leg.

The doctor said I might be done running, or at the very least, I was going to need to back off considerably. She said the tendon that holds that foot up is now lax. It doesn’t hold tension, and it can’t be fixed. So my foot will sag, and I will have to develop the muscles around the ankle to counter that, but I will be more and more prone to rolling it.

I must confess that, at the time, I was focused on getting permission to ride a bike. I was absolutely losing my mind for lack of activity, and I needed something, anything to be able to claw back some measure of sanity. Once she said I could ride a bike, with a brace on, I pushed her other pronouncements to the back of my mind and fled her office. On some level, I did think, “Wow. So, the day has finally come…,” but I pushed that off too.

It’s nearly two months since the injury. I have another MRI coming up to determine whether there is any course of action that would improve my ankle more permanently than physical therapy alone or figure out the extent to which the joint is already arthritic. I don’t know what’s going to come of that.

All of this has been odd for me, cognitively dissonant. I have been running on compromised joints for a long time. I have done loads of PT, massage, acupuncture, cupping, scraping, etc. I guess I just assumed I’d always being doing that. The idea that I might actually reach the end of my joint function didn’t occur to me, and frankly, I am having a hard time believing that’s the case.

There’s an up and down emotional component to this sort of thing, of course. Mostly, I think it’s fine, and it’ll work out somehow, because why wouldn’t it? I don’t believe I’ve run my last step.

But that’s quite a thing to consider. How many steps has it been? That’s a question that never interested me before, a number that I never bought into. How many steps? How far? I’m one not interested much in data.

The idea that I’m out of steps though is fascinating. What is/was the actual number you get? And if you knew how many you had, how would you change your approach? I regret nothing of course, but it’s something to consider.