As I mentioned in my last post, I did unfortunately injure myself during my first half marathon. Official diagnosis was a stress fracture of my third metatarsal bone.
During the event, my foot started hurting about half way through. It hurt along with my ankles and knees, and everything else so I didn’t really think much of it. “This is a half marathon,” I said to myself, “everything is going to hurt!”
That afternoon, as I predicted, every part of my lower body was in pain. The next day, thankfully, the pain was already subsiding. It quickly turned into stiffness and the familiar ache of muscle repair. This was true for most of my lower body, except for my left foot. Not only was my left foot not getting any better, it was actually feeling quite a bit worse.
Doctor’s Orders
After a couple of days of not being able to put any weight on it without feeling like I was walking on knives, I went to see a doctor.
He told me it was likely a stress fracture, and x-rays later confirmed it. I was ordered to not walk unless I had to, and after a couple of weeks to “let the pain be my guide” with regard to when I could start putting weight on it and walking more.
Running was strictly prohibited until the follow up x-rays were taken and looked at, which happened yesterday. Looks like the x-ray came back fine, so I’m now cleared to ease back into running.
Hindsight
I should have stopped running when it started to really hurt. I know that. It’s a message I’ve seen in all the books and training guides. All of that great advice went out the window during the race. In my mind, from the very beginning of the race, there was no way I was not crossing that finish line. I really mean that literally. There was no way that I was not going to run, walk, or crawl over that line. It just wasn’t an option.
I’ve had some crazy ideas, dreams, and pursuits in my life that haven’t gone anywhere, but this one is different. I needed to prove to myself that this is something I could do; that I would do.
I like to think that some day, that same single minded determination that helped me push through the pain will help me to cross more important finish lines. That being said, I will definitely pay a lot more attention to pain in future training and events, to avoid the kind of setbacks this injury has caused.