Wednesday, June 10 7:32 pm 11.6 mi
AT 534.1 Partnership Shelter → Relax Inn/Atkins, VA AT 545.7
Weather: Rainy all the way into Atkins, then sunny rest of day
Trail Condition: Dry (water-source) morning, muddy trail – first time in awhile I’ve been soaked to the bone and had totally water-logged shoes. Rocky terrain today.
My Condition: Poor. My toughest day of hiking yet. Shin was really painful from the start, my hip is rubbed raw from the waist strap/moisture, chafing pretty badly, I was thirsty. Limped into town after a short day.
Rough day! Didn’t come anywhere near my mileage goal for the did. Did a resupply at the gas station and spent the afternoon icing my shin/ankle. Seems to be front/outside of ankle/shin. Pain is worst with pulling toes toward shin, but also painful when toes fully pointed out. Hopefully a short day, plus some TLC today, will have things feeling much better tomorrow.
Post Trail Analysis
This was a much needed rest and repair day. My pain threshold is relatively high and I consider myself to be pretty gritty when it comes to pushing through discomfort and putting it out of my mind, but this ankle was a PROBLEM. First order of business was to find a hotel close to the trail. I looked on Guthook and did a quick search, convinced that the motel right off the trail couldn’t possibly be open. It was empty, bereft, not a car in the parking lot, not a light on, next to a covered bridge which had clearly seen better days, appearing from the outside to be out of business. Thinking what I was looking at on Guthook and the internet must not be the correct location, I called the number to verify where it was, and that they were open. Sure enough, they were. I still didn’t quite believe it until I saw an employee pop outside from the main office area in the middle. I booked a room, definitely not the Ritz to put it mildly with rather outdated facilities and cobwebs in some of the corners, but thankful for the fact that I’d be able to hopefully get all sorted out. I did all sorts of googling, and Dr. Internet pointed to Anterior Ankle Impingement as the probable issue. I believe it was initially caused by a sprain from rolling it on the downhill stairs before the Grayson Highlands, and further aggravated by a jarring dorsiflexed step in the Grayson Highlands where my foot was pulled upwards and my heel was pressed downwards. I felt a constant dull ache, which also increased in severity steadily the longer I hiked. My foot would also feel “dead” in that after a time I lost the power to both drive off that foot and to absorb impacts – it just didn’t have the same level of flex it normally did. Fortunately, this issue looked manageable. I found a variety of stretches focused on unimpinging the ligament, pulling it back towards the shin and forcing it straight out away from the body. The first few rounds were godawfully painful, but I would definitely find respite from the pain for a time after doing them. So I spent the day stretching it, and icing it, and then stretching it some more, and then icing it some more. I also looked up how to KT tape for this specific injury, which provided some very real support. Got to watch some good episodes of It’s Always Sunny and some Vice News. I hoped that, come the next morning, the ankle would be feeling night and day better than it had before but uncertain whether or not it would. I worried that if it felt the same the next day that I’d need to seek medical care, and potentially be forced off trail by injury – the only thing I thought that realistically could keep me from finishing the trail. Fortunately, I felt able to continue onward the next day and did not need to take an additional rest day, which was a very real possibility.
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