Ice ice baby

After that rather nasty blow I took on the ankle this weekend just gone, I'm pleased to report that it's nothing serious and it seems to be sorting itself out remarkably quickly. It's about a day and a half since I got hit, and after spending yesterday struggling to even walk, right now my ankle is up to about 90-95% of it's normal range of movement and the pain is virtually gone save for the odd twinge.

I've been giving it ice regularly and it's working wonders - ice on for 20 minutes, then take it off and mobilise for and hour or more, then back with the ice. When I got hit flush on the shin last year I was amazed how short a period of time that took to sort itself out, but that time as well as this the key was to get ice on it as soon as possible to reduce the blood flow and in doing so minimise the bruising and inflammation.

The part of my foot the ball actually hit is just on the front of the outside of my left ankle bone and the ball seems to have hit bone and flesh simultaneously, with the swelling of the tendons underneath seeming to be causing the restricted movement. What had me utterly baffled as soon as the thought occurred to me was, how did my pads allow me to get hit there? It really was a 1 in 100 ball to find its way between pad and shoe at just the right angle to hit me on the ankle, and to be honest, I'm not terribly impressed with my pads right now. Is it so hard for a pad manufacturer to notice this vulnerability? It would be one thing if my pads were cheap entry-level affairs but they're Slazenger Ultimates, advertised as being the type used by Slazenger's test players, and they weren't cheap!

Anyway, I'm pretty relieved that what at the time seemed a pretty nasty injury isn't going to put me out of commission for nets on Thursday night.