I know I’ve been absent around here for the past couple weeks. I have been putting off writing about this update, because frankly, it sucks.
I started having some minor pain in my foot the week after Memorial Day, or the week before I went to San Diego. It started on Tuesday with some soreness in the bottom of my foot when I started running. After a couple of miles, it went away, and I thought it was no big deal. I ran a couple more times that week, and same thing. A minor annoyance that almost felt like a bruise on the bottom of my foot. Then cam San Diego. As I mentioned, I ran/walked/jogged probably 20-25 miles over 8 hours, much of it on concrete. By the Tuesday after the race (June 5th), I couldn’t run on it at all. I went to my group run, started gimping, and I knew right away something was wrong. I gave it a mile to see if it would loosen up at all, but I ended up stopping and walking back.
I took a week off. I biked. I got acupuncture. I swam. I got massage therapy. I took another week off. When I was still having pain while walking two weeks later, I made an appointment with a foot specialist, pretty much convinced that I had a stress fracture.
I went in on Wednesday (June 20), and the good news it that the x-ray was clean. I was diagnosed with peroneus brevis tendonitis and a 5th metatarsal bone bruise, right where the tendon connects.
The doc asked me how aggressive I wanted to be in treating it, and I told him I wanted to heal as fast as possible so I can get back to running. He said the best way to heal it fast would be complete immobilization for a week. He gave me the walking boot, and I’ve had the thing on ever since. I can take it off to drive and shower. He wanted me to keep it on at night, but I just couldn’t sleep with it, so in comes off when I go to bed as well. I have also been icing it once a day at night.
This coming Wednesday I can take the boot off and see how it feels to walk around. If I have no pain, I can slowly start biking, swimming, and even a little running. But if there is any pain at all, I need to stop. I will not be doing the Door County Triathlon on July 22nd, because even if I am healthy enough to race, I am severely undertrained at this point and running the race would likely flare the whole thing back up again and I would be back at square one. It is more important to me to be able to run and race in the fall than to do the tri.
In the meantime, I have still been enjoying the heck out of summer. Steve and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary on June 21st with a great dinner at an Italian restaurant.
We have been boating, strawberry festivaling, hanging out with friends, and getting stuff done around the house. We have been installing new interior doors, painting said doors and trim, and working in the yard just to name a few things. I am trying to stay positive and looking forward to running as soon as I possibly can. The break was nice, but I plan to start posting more frequently as I recover and get back to training.
Have you ever dealt with an injury that sidelined you for any length of time? Was it easy to get back into the swing of things?
