Partially Torn Ligament
Well it looks like I had to go to hospital to stop the neglect of this blog. When I say hospital is more like a fancy upscale clinic. There were no rooms as far as I could see. Anyhow the story goes that 2 Fridays ago toward the end of the business day, my co-worker starts giving me his usual teasing about my belly and tells me I should run 5 km in the “マラソン大会” (Marathon festival) on the next day. I figured if he was gonna tease me about my weight I might as well show up and give it a try.
Like everything involving sports and weekends in Japan, it started early. At 8 am I was at the park and after setup we were all ready to go at 10 am. Since this involved all the kids in our town, there was to be three heats, one for the elementary and 5 km Adults, another for junior high kids, and a third for… ah well I forgot the third. I ran in the first heat so I didn’t see much of anyone else. So there I was running 5 km with no practice or training in any of the days previous. Of course I had no real expectation of winning or even placing, the goal was just to finish. That’s the part that makes me the most angry because I almost did it.
After running (well there was a little walking after the half-way point) almost the whole distance, I was about 100 meters from the goal. Down the stretch I could see a couple of elementary kids who I skate with cheering me on. I couldn’t hear them yet but I could tell they were yelling “頑張れ！(Ganbare!)” And in the next split second my foot was on uneven ground, my weight was shifting, the feeling of a quick stabbing pain and then numbness in my ankle as my foot folded sideways, then I was on the ground. The soft crunching sound that traveled up inside my body to my ears let me know exactly what happened. Something similar had happened to me before 4 or 5 years back on my other foot and while it didn’t hurt as bad this time, I knew that it was most likely going to be the same prognosis. So I limped back to the goal and passed the tape all the while being helped by those previous cheering elementary schoolers.
The next I received the prognosis I was expecting: 2 to 3 months to heal. Godammit. So much for summer sports or exercising for the most part. I may be able to go swimming or maybe bicycling at some point but for now I’m stuck wearing this ankle brace day and night. In the mean time my co-worker has the new nickname of ‘Bastard’… and he loves it.