Rolling
I’m two for two on rolling my ankle on multi-day hiking tips.
Nepal’s was way worse, the recent one from Newfoundland’s East Coast Trail, was mid. It wouldn’t really be much of an issue if I hadn’t had a 50K trail running race seven days after my return.
But something else loosened on the hiking path after that misplaced footstep: I wasn’t paying as much attention to pace. I wasn’t as focused on moving strongly forward. I wasn’t thinking about my heart rate. I chatted more freely and picked more wild blueberries.
In the space of one off-kilter footstep, everything I had planned for three months was in jeopardy. As my miles and my heart rate decreased, the coming events became fuzzier. The possibility that the race might not happen slackened my grip on the events of the future just as the ligaments in my ankle released.
Before the bad step, I had absolute certainty in a long and difficult physical challenge. The question was how to meet it. After, the challenge remained but the contours shapeshifted. Instead of considering how to push through the miles or how I was going to make it up the climb, it was how to balance the need for a strong, enduring heart with tendons in need of rest.
How much could I trust that my training would carry me through a week at sea level hiking instead of trail running in the mountains? How could I do just the right amount of movement to allow healing?
The answer? I knew I would definitely mess it up. I would not be able to balance that chemical equation. But maybe I could find some bits of wisdom things in there, rolling around. Loosening the restrictions.
Just hopefully no more loosening of the critical bits holding my foot to my leg.
Inspired by events on Newfoundland’s East Coast Trail
On the ancestral lands of the Beothuk and traditional lands of the Mi’kmaq.