If you have ever registered for a race and given your email address, you surely noticed that your inbox began to fill with emails about other races. Anyone who has ridden in my car or browsed the music on my iPod will know my reaction when I received an email about a “Rock ‘n’ Roll “ half-marathon Labor Day weekend in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Having just completed my first marathon, I wasn’t quite ready for another full one, but I couldn’t pass up a race lined with rock bands (and on a really flat course).
Three weeks before the race, I felt great. My legs were strong, I had adjusted to the heat, found a house I loved, and felt nothing could go wrong. A half mile into my last long run before I started tapering, I took a step and felt a sudden piercing pain in my foot. I thought it was a muscle cramp or that I had tweaked something, and that like most running pains, it would stop hurting as I ran. Three and a half miles later, my foot still hurt, a lot. I had a choice, I could turn and add on the 8 miles I needed to make my 12 mile run, or head home, finishing only 4 miles and try again tomorrow.
I stopped at the intersection and thought to myself, “I should take a look at my foot, maybe I will be able to see if there’s something wrong with it.” I sat down and immediately the pain disappeared. I took off my shoe and sock. No swelling. No discoloration. No bone sticking out the side. No pain. The choice was simple, put my sock and shoe back on and finish the 12 miles. The minute I stood up, I knew making it 8 more miles was no longer an option. Instead of finishing the run, I limped home, hopping on one foot by the time I got to the house.
The next week and a half was spent icing and resting, as much as I could the first week of school. Despite my efforts and hopes that the pain would disappear, it didn’t. When there was no weight on it, my foot felt fine, but the minute I stood up, the pain would return immediately. My sister convinced me to go to a doctor a week and a half before the race.
I closed on my house Wednesday morning and walked into the doctor’s office that afternoon. After pressing and pushing, the doctor told me he was pretty sure it wasn’t broken, just a deep bruise, or maybe a sprain (I thought to myself, yes! I’ll be able to run). But, just in case, he took x-rays. Several minutes later he returned and asked how I had kept from screaming when they were pressing my foot (it really hadn’t hurt THAT much), after which he pulled up my x-ray showing a crack in the fourth metatarsal (later x-rays show the bone broken through). I looked at the doctor and asked, in all seriousness, “So, can I just take a couple ibuprofen and run next weekend?” He laughed, held up a walking boot, and replied, “Definitely not, you can wear this for the next 8-10 weeks, and try to stay off your feet.” Haha, had I mentioned I was a teacher? Who had a new house to move into? And a beagle that loves walks?
So, to make a long story short, I didn’t run the 2007 Virginia Beach Rock ‘n’ Roll Half-Marathon (although they did send me my t-shirt), but knew I would (see Virginia, 2008). And although my Labor Day weekend was not spent at the beach, having my foot in a boot earned me a lot of help moving into my house.
