Recovery is more important than taking the challenge

A couple of months with no updates, there are reasons. So toward the end of 2012 I set out to regain my running levels in readiness for Marathon training for a spring Marathon in 2013. Just after Christmas I set out with a new Garmin plan which seemed solid enough and for 4 weeks did what it said. Then an unfortunate accident happened. ( I blame Google). Walking down the road, following google maps on my phone, I tripped on a step and very badly sprained my ankle. Bad enough in fact that I went to A&E to check that it wasn't broken. OK, so soft tissue injuries take a while to recover but I was confident that this was only a set back. 4 weeks on and after some intensive physio I went for an exploration on a treadmill. Managed to get to a gentle run and was confident it was upward from here. Next few days I did similar tests at a very easy pace, only just a job really but managed to get going up to a mile and eased the pace up occasionally to flex the joints. A week later I was on the road, testing against the real world where there are uneven surfaces, cambers and corners, all of which highlighted that I was not 100% but I was doing OK. Another week went by and I was loosening up nicely and many of the niggles had gone. I was still using supports for added reassurance but with a mind to go without and see how things turned out. So one last reasonable run before going back to basics. Unfortunately during this 8 miler it seems that the support bandage around my ankle rubbed too much on my forefoot. Gradually running became uncomfortable and a couple of hours after, my foot hurt on the top and had a slight swelling, exactly where the rib of the support had been. Seems it's really aggravated the tendons and stuffed any recovery plans good and proper for now. It's been 2 weeks since this happened and as soft tissue injuries can take some weeks to recover it's looking more and more unlikely that I could get back out and up to speed for me early May race. So with this in mind, although my Marathon entry is still valid I have acknowledged and more importantly accepted that it's probably not going to happen this time round. So trying to keep some level of fitness up without doing anything that could risk my ankle/foot using the pool and the gym, i'm effectively having a holiday from running. (probably till April or even May). I have a couple of Half Marathons planned for later in the year (late summer / autumn) and I hope that a very gradual training process will rebuild the strength and stability that I had a couple of months ago. It's not what I wanted but sometimes there isn't a choice and we have to accept it.