The Iron Legs Trail Race in Bragg Creek has become one of my favorite events of the year. The course is challenging, the weather is usually great and its very well organized. Two months prior to the start of the race I hit a benign looking pothole on the cycle path and rolled my ankle. I’ve never broken a bone before, but as soon as I rolled over on it this time I knew the *snap* and *pop* indicated something was more wrong than a simple sprain. Within 5 minutes my ankle was the size of a grapefruit.
Of course I wasn’t running with my cell phone as it was a quick loop close to my house, which meant when my ankle rolled I was stuck laying on the path waiting for someone to walk by so I could make a phone call. After a few hours of waiting, my wife picked me up and I took myself to the hospital for a xray. People complain about the health services we have here in Canada, but my time in the hospital was less than an hour to check in, wait for triage, get an xray, talk to doctor about xray and get fitted for a cast. Amazing!
Below you can see the tiny bone that broke on the inside of my ankle. The bone break was minor, it was all the tendons that tore on the outside of my ankle.
Innocuous pothole that put my running on hold for 2.5 months.
I got my gear together the night before, which meant I only got about 3 hours of sleep prior to the race.
At 7:00am the sun was just coming up at the start.
The air was thick and smoky which kept the temperature down, but destroyed all the views.
I felt great at the 55km turnoff. But soon after hit a complete wall with a knot in my stomach. Eating gels and sugar intensive foods during the day caught up to me. I struggled up moose packers switchback, but was given a ginger candy at about km 65 which completely fixed my stomach and gave me a second wind. The trek up moose mountain was smoky, yet enjoyable. Its just the right grade that you can bomb down after the turn around point.
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Top of Moose Mountain:
At the turn around point. I had to take it easy on way down as my ankle still didn’t feel 100% stable:
I didnt take many pictures during the day as the air was smoky from all the forest fires. It also didn’t help that I finished just as the sun went down. I felt great at the end, actually much better than I did after running the 60 last year with the intense heat. My ankle was fine, no pain, yet I did take it easy on it, especially on the downhills.
From crutches a few months ago, to finishing the race, I’m happy with the results.
