My left foot had been bothering me a bit for a couple of weeks. I've had some pain on the top of my foot which had concerned me a bit since, as I understand, that's a symptom of a possible stress fracture. However, I had the same thing crop up for a month or so as I was training for the Memorial Marathon earlier this year and it cleared up by itself well before the marathon.
We met at the Devon Boathouse around 7:30 on a cool and misty morning and took off. The plan was to run out five and a half miles then back to get 11 miles. As soon as we started, the foot was bothering me a bit but not enough to concern me. We stopped for a minute around the 4 mile mark because Ross thought there was a water fountain off the trail. I mentioned that the foot was bothering me some because it had progressively got worse as we ran. Ross asked if I wanted to stop but I thought I'd be okay and said no, so we continued on.
We ran around an 8:45/mile pace on the way out. When we hit the 5.5 mile mark we stopped, turned around an walked for a couple of minutes as we both consumed a Gu, then took off again. We picked up the pace on the way back to about 8:30/mile. As we ran my foot began bothering me more and more and by the time we had hit around 8 miles it was really starting to hurt and was affecting my gait as I tried to favor it.
If I had been by myself I think I would have quit at this point and walked it on in, but stupidly, I felt the need to keep up with Ross and I kept going. I know Ross wouldn't have had any problem with it if I'd told him I had to stop so it was pretty foolish on my part. With about a mile left, we crossed the river to the side we'd parked on and as we got back on the trail, a runner was there just in front of us. Ross' competitive spirit kicked in and he picked up the pace to catch the guy. I tried to keep up but as the pace quickened I began falling behind. Finally as we neared the 10.4 mile mark I stopped and began limping back watching Ross and the other runner go off into the distance.
As I limped back I began realizing I was in worse shape than I thought because now, even walking was feeling pretty painful. As I neared the Chesapeake Boathouse I saw Ross walking back to meet me. We walked back to our cars together and discussed how I was feeling a bit before we both headed home. When I got home and out of the car I found I could hardly walk into the house. I had planned on going to the fair with Peggy, Lyndsey and K. Lee after getting home and cleaned up, but after I showered and tried to get around the house a bit I realized there was no way I could do that. I tried to stay off it as much as possible and kept it raised the rest of the day, hoping it would be better the next morning.
Unfortunately it was no better on Sunday and was now quite swollen so we ended up going to an emergency clinic that afternoon. They x-rayed it then a doctor came in to take a look. He told me he didn't see anything on the x-rays but also cautioned that if it was a stress fracture that wouldn't show up on x-rays for 8–10 days. He told me I shouldn't do any running for 7 to 10 days and asked if I'd like a walking boot. Since I could hardly walk and it was very painful to try I told him yes. He also prescribed some pain medicine since I had slept badly Saturday night because it had hurt all night. He told me they would have a radiologist look at the x-rays and let me know if he saw anything. On his diagnosis, he put down that I had a sprain.
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| My poor foot on Monday evening. |
I felt a bit better after seeing him since my impression was that he didn't think it was too serious. And he was a runner too. It was really no better Monday through Wednesday morning, but as the day wore on Wednesday it began improving significantly. Thursday morning the clinic called me. They asked how it was doing and told me the x-rays showed I had a bit of arthritis in the foot and a small bone spur on my heel (which has never bothered me). They said both of those were fairly typical for someone my age. And they confirmed that no fracture showed up. Finally they said if it kept bothering me to come back or see my family physician or they could refer me to someone.
It's been a week now, and it has continued to improve but is still not completely healed. There is still just a touch of swelling near my toes and I still can't step off on my toes without pain so I continue to have a slight limp. Obviously, this has put a big wrench in my plans for the Route 66 but I'm hopeful I will be able to continue training and run the race. I'm planning on no running until next weekend which will be two weeks off, and hope I'll be able to run on it by then. I still worry a bit that I could have a stress fracture which may keep me from running the half marathon.
I guess the only good thing that has come from this is that I've definitely learned my lesson about paying attention to my body and know I need to call it a day if something is truly hurting.
BTW, I'm still working on a Memorial Marathon report. Obviously, that's been coming along very slowly, but I'll get it posted up here soon. Promise!
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