Afterwards

The combination circuits, an extra few km and the ankle issue has given me noticeably tired legs today. This includes quadriceps tiredness and a very slight tenderness close to their insertion and reappearance of the ankle niggle. I've spotted that I'm favouring stepping onto the ball of my right foot, making the overlying skin a bit tender, and wonder if this shows that the foot is being everted by excessive contraction of the peroneus?

Making an effort to step 'normally' has, of course, the opposite effect and makes an uneven gait.  I have been thinking of a even placement in an attempt to stop chain of discomfort developing.

Nothing to worry about

This evening I've been assured by Kim that my ankle niggles are probably down to a bit of fatigue/damage in the peroneus muscles. These run from the lateral border of the fibula to the outer border and sole of the foot - this probably explains the slightly 'odd' feeling of my middle toes. The two major peroneus muscles have ligaments that run around the lateral malleolus and this is a common site of referred 'trigger point' pain even though there is little muscle at that area. These diffuse areas of referred pain help explain why I have found it hard to say exactly where the pain is.

Trigger point around ankle from website

The physio checked for nerve tightness & trapping and muscle weakness and felt that there was no clear underlying damage. It is likely, as I suspected, that I have slightly overloaded the peroneus longus on Tuesday's faster run by inversion whilst running on the uneven roots and stones found in the woods. The observation that there is no tenderness around the malleolus helps to confirm that the connective tissue isn't unduly inflamed. By the common classification of sprains my niggle is a lot milder than a Grade 1 on the 1 to 3 scale.

So, I need to keep it mobilised to prevent scarring and increase the strengthening exercises. I already do wobble board single leg balance exercises which I find quite easy but I've been encouraged to add single leg calf raises to the programme to help reduce the risk of future injury.