Week 18
Planned: 10:35 total hours (1:30 swim, 3:20 bike, 2:45 run, 3:00 brick)
Completed: 10:27 hours (1:27 swim, 3:16 bike, 0:49 run!!!, 2:00 crosstrain, 2:55 honest to goodness brick!!!)
And I thought last week was bad …
On Tuesday I get a call from Mark, who's at the gym talking to the Podiatrist - who wants me to come in Wednesday morning at 8:30am. Doesn't want to wait to see me until after Memorial Day. So when I'm summoned by a doctor, I show up.
Fascinating visit on Wednesday. Apparently he was all ready to confirm the metatarsal stress fracture, put me in a walking boot, and prohibit me from running. But we took new x-rays and - NO STRESS FRACTURE! He thought maybe the pinkie toe had a minor something, but I could run on that … and then we compared it to the other foot and that wasn't it either. So no bone issues whatsoever. He thought I had a neuroma, a growth on the nerve between toes - need a sonogram to confirm.
So I manage to get a same-day appointment for the sonogram. Where they find not one, but TWO neuromas. I race back to the doc for my first cortisone shot - don't want to wait a week for that, it's a series of 3 shots and if I started that minute could get them all in before race day. Only a 50/50 chance that they'll work, but still don't want to wait. So now I'm elated, I'm medically cleared to run - just have to suck it up through the pain - and so all is good. Fabulous.
Thursday morning I go to the track - woohoo!!! - and grimace and wince and manage to get though 4.5 miles. Uncomfortable, slow, sometimes painful miles. Heel-striking, inefficient, crappy miles. But still 4.5 miles. I was trying to ignore my memory that the after-effects of the run might be worse then the run. Ignoring the memory was fine … until Thursday night/Friday morning when I couldn't put weight on my foot. And then by Friday afternoon I'm walking around ok, just with a slight limp. Are the shots working? Do they make it worse before they make it better? What the hell is going on? Am I going to be able to do the damn race? And will I not be able to walk for days afterwards if I do???
In the middle of all of this, I go out on my Wed bike ride Thursday afternoon, since I missed Wed running around diagnosing my neuroma. I'm about 40 minutes in, about to pass this guy as we go over Sully Rd, and he decides to pull a u-turn WITHOUT LOOKING. WTF???? So I go right into him and we both go down. I was terrified, totally thought I was going over the handlebars - altho I don't think I did, can't remember exactly to be honest. I'm scraped and bruised but no major damage, bike seems fine except that my bar end shifter for the cassette broke off. I must've been in a bit of shock, because I assessed everything, got some bandaids from park patrol and headed off to finish my 2 hour ride - with 2 gears.
Between the crash and the fact that my foot was killing me, by the time the kids were done with school I was barely holding it together. It just all seemed like too much, like more than I could ask of myself. Like pushing myself through this was really bordering on total insanity. But Chris seems to think that keeping on the path and doing whatever it takes is exactly the right course of action, and given that he has not drunk the kool aid I will trust that I should keep going.
So Saturday I hopped on the trainer - had to do threshold tempo work and my normal course for that was going to be a trafficky mess. I banged out an elliptical session that afternoon. Man, will I be happy when I never have to look at that thing again. And Sunday morning I went out on a brick with Ilana. I was tired, nervous to be out on the bike, and intent on doing a 1 mile run afterwards but also scared of how that would feel - during the run and later that day. But I sucked it up and headed out on my bike, which was fine even though I was skittish the whole time. And for the run, I tried this awful, awkward gait where I basically don't put weight on my big toe - and it worked. It worked in that it wasn't painful, but it was slow and leaden and kind of awful. But also kind of good because I did manage to run 3 miles, even if they were slow and ugly.
So now my foot doesn't feel any worse, other than some muscular strain from the weird gate. I know I can run pain-free-ish which is good even though it's so unnatural and frustrating to do the weird compensating gait. And I'm two weeks out. I have no idea what the long-term prognosis is for my foot, which is disconcerting. And of course my right foot is having some odd pains which are a little to similar to what happened on the left. So I don't even know where my head's at … but I am going to keep my eyes on June 10th, on making it through that day, and then I'll worry about later, later.