It occurs to me that I should make an update on progress in my month of pain including recovery from my poorly-timed sprained ankle.

Pedals turning

For sanity's sake as much as anything, I kept the pedals turning on every day since the injury. Riding the Dahon I didn't make it above 5 or 6km for the first six days. Under the circumstances, I was very pleased to be able to join the family New Year's Day ride, even if I did only jump on board for the final 6km.

I don't recall when I stopped treating the area with ice, but it was still getting the odd application on 2 January.

By the seventh day (4 January), I was confident that I could put quite a bit of force through the ankle in the cycling motion, even though walking was still a little dicey. So I joined the family again for an excursion along the Eastlink Trail and Dandenong Creek Trail.

This sudden jump to 20km with no ill-effects indicated that recovery was progressing well—just in time to ride to work the next day. So much for the much-needed fortnight of hill work during the Christmas holidays!

Normal service resumes

The week of commuting was largely uneventful and led to no serious ill-effects on the ankle. I felt so good to be riding again that I included a Yarra Boulevard detour to my commute on Friday.

I started removing the ankle bandage on about the tenth day (7 Jan), and went without completely on Friday and yesterday (nearly two weeks from injury).

Into the hills

I returned to the hills yesterday with a ride in the Dandenongs. The hills were gorgeous but it was hard work—not what an excursion to the Dandenongs should be within a fortnight of the Alpine Classic! I took that as a reality check: I won't be doing the 200km ride at Bright (unless I have a complete rush of blood to the head the day before!)

I can't really blame the lack of form on the ankle sprain—I should have done much more climbing in the later part of last year—but I reckon I'd be in better shape if I'd had that post-Xmas week to push myself. As it is, I feel that I've lost a little form because I didn't feel nearly as strong as I did on my last visit to the Dandenongs at the end of November.

All I can do now is take myself up some big hills over the next few weekends and see how I go.

Current score

I'm still walking a bit gingerly as the ankle continues to feel a little unstable and tends to get tired. It's amazing how often during an average day you nudge, push, kick and turn things with your foot—all of which are quite painful when I forget that I've got a dodgy ankle. As for running, forget it. But that said, I shifted some bulky furniture yesterday (very carefully!) with no complaints.

However, when cycling things feel great—presumably because the ankle moves through a predictable and safe range of movement. The odd road bump may cause uncomfortable jarring and I still prefer to help my foot out of the pedal by hand, but other than that I can only conclude that cycling is aiding my recovery.