With my leg still giving me trouble even after cutting back on running, I went almost the entire month of July without running. I could still do strength training and got a cheap indoor rower off the ol’ Marketplace to try and keep my cardio up without putting pressure on my leg. The rower, I think, will be a good off-day tool to use for cross-training, but rowing for more than an hour is not so fun.
I ended up going to a chiropractor and was referred to get x-rays on my leg to see if there was a stress fracture. I received the images the same day I got the x-rays taken but had to wait on the radiologist’s report. Looking at the images, it seemed like there could have been a spot that might have been a stress fracture. Prior to going to the chiropractor, I had held off from running, apart from a 1-mile test run during which I could still feel the pain in my leg with every step, but it was not unbearable.
I received the report a week later, which said there was no fracture present. With that news, I quickly put on my trail shoes and headed out the door. Thinking the trail might be softer on my leg than running on the road, I headed out. I went over to our local trails and ran one of the 3-mile loops. I knew this run would have to be slow and steady. I ran very intentionally and still felt the pain in my leg at times. Despite the pain still being present, it was noticeably better than the previous 1-mile run. The next big test was to see how my leg felt the next day. To my surprise, it was about the same as before the run.
Last week, I had a follow-up appointment with the chiropractor, who had the x-rays up on his computer when I got there. Looking over the x-rays with him, he said there was either a small stress fracture or the very start of a stress fracture present in two out of the four x-ray angles. He mentioned that radiologists will often say there is no fracture present if they don’t see evidence of it in all of the angles. If I needed a written record of whether there was a stress fracture, he would refer me to have the radiologist’s report appealed. To me, it really doesn’t make a difference having it properly recorded. Knowing that there probably was a stress fracture is what matters. At least that tells me I didn’t refrain from running for an entire month for no reason. It also tells me not to push through the pain as I start running again to avoid making any possible fracture worse, which would set me back further. Essentially, the chiropractor told me that as long as I’m not in pain, I should be good to start running again.
The next day, Hannah and I went to the trails to run for an hour. We ran most of it at a slow pace with some mixed-in walking. The run overall felt better than the other trail run, but I could still feel my leg if I started to increase my pace. Thankfully, after the run and the next day, there wasn’t any worsening or overstressing of the leg. I took two rest days over the weekend and continued the icing and the PT routine I’ve been doing. Starting today, for the rest of the week, I will be running 1 hour every other day to see how my leg handles the increased stress.
I’m hoping that if it was a stress fracture and either a small one or just the start of one before I stopped running, the 5 weeks of taking it easy have paid off enough to allow me to start reconditioning back into training. I’ve got to recreate a new training schedule, taking into consideration the need to balance increasing training hours with not overstressing my leg. With just under 3 months until race day, the next few weeks are going to be crucial in determining how much discomfort I will end up experiencing at the starting line.
-T
