The High and the Low

Sunday I went for a long run. It was AMAZING! I took off three minutes of my 4 miles. As I ran I had a new mantra: I am an endurance runner. I am an endurance athlete. I felt so amazing. I was smiling during mile four.

I swigged some water at the house. Bragged to the man about my amazing time and only taking two walking breaks and then I took off. I was hoping to fit in two more miles, my longest run ever, but would have also been fine with five miles.

Then around 4.5 my foot started to ache a bit. And it wasn't too much longer until I knew that I wasn't going to finish. I tried to change up the route, but it didn't matter. I covered about 5.5 miles, but I walked pretty much the last mile or so.

My foot HURT! I spent the rest of the day practicing RICE. I've never had a real running injury like this before. Sure, sometimes my hip hurt last fall, but not like this. I'm a little worried it could be a stress fracture.

I have almost cried about it so many times. It's so unfair that what started out so amazing has ended so horribly. And that I am scheduled to run my first 10K ever in just three weeks.

Today it felt a little better and I hit the gym for biking, strength class and swim lessons. I was able to do all that without causing myself any pain. And it made me feel better. I am taking the week off running. And next week I'll evaluate the pain. I'm hoping that it will continue to get better and I could start running again next Tuesday.

But I'm also facing the fact that it might not happen. I might not run this 10K. It hurts me, but I don't want to hurt myself more, so I'm trying not to push too hard. I'm thinking that I won't be going to the doctor, especially if my ankle continues to heal as well as it has in the past 24 hours. Treatment for stress fractures are pretty much rest and no running. I doubt they would even give me a boot, since it's feeling so much better already. So as I spent a lot of money at the Ortho and their fancy MRI last year - I'm not eager to do so again.

Even it I have to take a full six weeks off of running, it's going to be okay. I'm supposed to start training for my Mini-triathlon in February. I'll just focus on the biking and swimming for a few weeks. The run will only be two miles. That'll feel like cake, even if I don't have a full twelve weeks of run training.