And the final diagnosis is…

Stress Fracture

That’s right; it’s another milestone I didn’t want. This is the first broken bone of my 33 ½ year life. I’ll admit, I’ve been moping around feeling sorry for myself since this started. I’ve done very little exercise and I’ve been eating horribly. That ended yesterday. I’ll get to that in a minute, first the foot. I am not allowed to run for at least the next 2-3 weeks; possibly longer. In about 2 weeks they are sending me to an orthopedic doctor to either get a thumb up or thumb down to start working my way back into running. My doctor is still hopeful that I will not have to miss the Hospital Hill Half Marathon in 43 days, but I’m sure I won’t do well with almost no running between now and then. I also have this fancy new orthopedic shoe that I get to wear 24-7; yep, even when I’m sleeping I’m supposed to wear it. Awesome. Hopefully this heals quickly and I can be back at it in a couple weeks.

Now there’s what to do in the mean-time. As I said above, I’ve been very lax in my workouts and eating for the last month or so. Unacceptable, injury or not, I cannot go back to my old ways. Yesterday I started the 100 Day Challenge. It calls for 100 straight days with a minimum of 30 minutes of activity. It can be anything, running, walking, weight training, core work, anything. Last night I did the ab program I was doing a while back and this morning before work I went to the gym and did some core work and upper body weight training. As far as the foot injury, it will be VERY limiting. I have to walk as little as possible, no elliptical, etc. My doctor said I can ride a bike as long I do it with my ortho shoe on and there is absolutely no pain or discomfort of any kind in my foot. I do not have access to a pool, so I didn’t even ask about swimming. So I’m going to have to figure out some sort of cardio work I can do without using my foot. Hmmmm. Any ideas are certainly welcome.

So, for the next few weeks this blog will not be about running, it’ll be about other workouts that I can do to try to get back into and stay in shape. I have come to truly love the active life I’ve been living for the last year and a half. Unfortunately, when you are active as much as I have been, injuries will eventually come up. It’s a fact of life, even the strongest body has it’s weak spots. This is, luckily, the most serious injury I’ve ever had, so I certainly have very little room to complain. I’ll get past this and be stronger and wiser for it. This has, in a strange way, re-sparked the desire I had a year and a half ago when I started this journey. I WILL get back to the level of effort and success I had before, and now I’ll be smarter and be able to better avoid future injury.