I was excited to enter the Tobacco Road race series again. Having run the full marathon twice, I
looked forward to trying out the half.
What made the event even better was that my sister and a friend of hers
from high school were going to join me for it. Her friend had run a couple halves but it was my sister’s
first half marathon. Although we
weren’t planning to run the race together, I was excited she was tackling the
distance (I was thinking about going for a PR and she was not a huge runner
squeezing in as much training as she could with a 2 and 4 year old).
Early to mid January my foot started to bother me. Sometimes when I ran it would hurt,
sometimes it wouldn’t. I would run
one night and get so frustrated with the pain that I wanted to go to the doctor
the next day. When I woke up the next
morning, I couldn’t make my foot hurt if I tried. The inconsistent pain made me think it couldn’t be too
serious, so I figured that I had pulled a muscle and decided to push through
it.
The week before the race it was feeling a little worse, but I wasn’t too
worried. Three miles into the race
I decided it was a little more serious than a pulled muscle. Six miles into the
race I had fallen well off my goal pace and was doing a beautiful job of hobble
running.
The race follows an out and back course and a little while after I turned
around I passed my sister going the other way. She looked great.
I tried to forget about my foot and think about how proud I was of her
(and hopefully how happy she was for herself). For a few minutes my mind wandered to thoughts about how
good it feels to finish your first big race and I hoped she was enjoying
it.
Then my foot reminded me it was still there. Around mile 9 it started throbbing and the pain returned. An aid station came into view and I
decided I was done, I could see my foot swelling against my shoe and unless I
could think of a really good distraction for the next few miles running
normally was not an option. As I
got closer, the ambulance stationed at the aid station pulled away. I took that as a sign not to give up (I
had also realized my ride left and that getting back on wheels might take
longer than running). So, I kept
going.
I had planned on finishing the race then heading back out to catch my
sister and run the last mile or 2 with her. That definitely wasn’t going to happen. I found my parents and stood with them
(on one foot) to watch for my sister and her friend finish. They both did great, her friend ran a
PR and my sister crossed the finish for her first half.
When I took my shoe off I realized how much it had been helping keep my
foot from swelling. My first task
Monday morning was to make a doctor’s appointment (for the first time my foot
still hurt the next day). A couple
of x-rays later I became the proud owner of a brand new walking boot (my old
one was not supportive enough).
Apparently my symptoms earlier in the season were signs of a stress
fracture and I had pushed through it for too long (did you know the feeling
that a part of your foot is burning can be a symptom of a stress fracture? I didn’t).
As I am fortunate to have a doctor who understands taking a 6-8 week
break from working out would drive me crazy, I was permitted to pedal on the
stationary bike at the gym, which I did 5-6 days a week, in my boot. I attribute the biking, along with
increasing my daily intake of calcium for getting my foot healed and out of
it’s boot and back to running in under 4 weeks…when I went back for my first
checkup I was cleared to lose the boot and slowly get back to running (the
muscles in my foot/ankle/calf were pretty weak and needed some time to
rebuild).
While I would gladly avoided the pain and time off from running, my
story of running a half marathon on a broken foot is usually a pretty big hit.
