Pain

This in no way trivializes the pain other people might be feeling. Like one friend facing down guillotine of corporate bullshit that could end her career. Or the one who recently gave birth nine weeks early. Or my niece, whose first lacrosse season might have ended before it started thanks to a stress fracture.

Anyway, running has been pain-free so far, which is good because it's taken more energy than I thought it should to get my body used to the reduced amount of oxygen. There's been a blister here, a toenail gash (and bloody sock) there, but I've stayed healthy.

Until yesterday.

Toward the end of a flat nine-miler, a sharp pain shot up and down my left leg, starting near my ankle. First though: Stress fracture. Twenty-five years of running now taking its toll. I tried stretching it out (though what you can do to stretch out a bone remains a mystery), slowed down, walked a bit, hoped like crazy... nothing worked. It still hurt. 

The nine-miler became a seven-and-a-half miler, and I stumbled home for an ice pack. I sat on the couch with my left foot propped up on an exercise ball and a Zip-loc bag of ice. I tried to read Sports Illustrated but with five weeks to go before my marathon, I pondered the possibilities. 

This is a place I haven't had pain before. The kicking motion in the water gives my ankles ridiculous flexibility, and the only time I've even sprained it (through years and years of team sports) was when I rolled it during a pickup basketball game in college. With the pain I had I wondered if how much Advil it would take to get through a marathon, or if maybe I should withdraw now and get myself healed before starting to train for Ironman in June.

My ankle sufficiently numbed, I went through the rest of my day. That night, as I walked downtown to meet some friends for drinks, I jogged a little and noticed something I hadn't before. Rather than a sting when my foot hit the ground, it was when my foot left the ground and cocked back. That means it's a tendon or ligament issue. Deep breath. Sigh of relief.

That means I can rest it, ice it, compress it (with a tight wrap from an ace bandage) elevate it and call it good. I bailed on a 14-miler today and while I hate to do that, I've got a 22-miler on Sunday that I consider far more critical. I'll run four easy miles tomorrow and see what happens. And I'll determine how to proceed from there.