Posting this at the risk of turning this into a running blog, which I promised I wouldn't do.
I'm totally psyching myself out today. It seems like everyone around me is injured right now. Even Saturday's long run was plagued with problems: one of our foursome dropped out with knee pain at mile 13 and a second dropped at mile 16 after climbing the giant, dreaded Eden Park Hill. I ran into one of my Daily Mile buddies at mile 15 (his 18) and he was down with a twisted ankle. But I ran on, and turned in 20 miles. Felt good afterward, like I could have kept going. Legs were a little tired and sore, but nothing major. Even the quad I was a little concerned about was totally fine by the end of the day.
Then yesterday. Yesterday I decided to go ahead and do a core workout with C. I'm incredibly bad at cross-training, so I was trying to do the right thing. I planned on sitting out the leg exercises.
10 minutes it, we get to the "speed skater" workout. I figured I'd try just one, so I bent down and leaned to the right, and OMFG, hello sharp, stabbing pain in my leg! It was on the outside, about two inches below my knee. I don't even know what's over there. So I shut it down. It hurt for a good 20 minutes afterward, but then it was ok. This morning, I can stand, I can walk, I can jump (yes, I tried). I even went so far as to jog a few steps in the office bathroom, even though I've decided to rest until Wednesday to let whatever it was go away.
But that doesn't stop me from googling. What if it's a stress fracture? Sure, stress fractures in the upper part of the fibula are rare, but so are four-digit prime numbers, and I got one of those on my first race bib. What if it's tendinitis? Or shin splints (even though it's not the right area)? Or any number of horrible things that could plague a runner dreaming of her first marathon? What if, what if, what if? And I'm driving myself crazy.
This is funny, and kind of makes me forget about the weird pain from yesterday.
Aww honey!! Doubtful that it's shin splints or a stress fracture. Both of those come on sloooowly. And if you can hop, it's almost certainly not a stress fracture. (I STILL can't hop on my right leg by itself.) You probably pulled/tweaked/twisted something. (IT band? What IS there?) Ice, yoga, and aleve, stop running if it hurts and see a doctor if it doesn't go away. From what I've read/seen, injuries that are caught early on will sideline someone for a week at most. It's because runners are stubborn and think we can run through pain that injuries get bad. You've got the 20 mile run down, so you could probably do minimal training until the pig -absolute worst case scenario! - and still do fine.
ReplyDelete'What If' is a deadly bitch and you need to slap her. Stop it right now!! If it's fine now and you go out for a couple miles with no problems, then put it out of your head and stop wishing that crud on yourself. I'm thinking you just found an exercise that doesn't agree with you and it was a fluke. It's happened to me a few times in yoga & kickboxing, and FWIW, speed-skaters are not the most kinetically friendly.
ReplyDeletethat is a funny clip - better than mine. I need to work on better material.
ReplyDeleteSo you might have a "black swan" fracture? Hope not but be careful.
That is a funny video! You ran 15 miles on purpose? With your legs and feet?
ReplyDelete