I'm feeling really apprehensive about the appointment with the Ortho doc. It's not so much the idea of *having* the stress fracture or whatever it is... its more about what it means for the future. Fractures heal, but its not really the bone that's the worst of it. Its what having a cast/flat shoe for 2 months does to your body. I'm scared because neither of Natalie Muren nor Liz Tedsen (both 37:20 10K-ers) have recovered from their stress fractures, and the time frames are now reaching the 'years' unit of measurement instead of the 'months' unit.
Last year I had to wear the flat shoe for 3-4 weeks and after that, my R knee was tweaked bc of the imbalance between the legs, and my L arch collapsed because of the atrophy from being mostly immobilized. These issues then spawned the chronic L arch/R knee, hip problems which in turn distorted my stride and footstrike enough such that I developed the stress fracture in the first place. Now that I know what *can* happen, I hope that I can use this info to come back properly from this next injury, but it also makes me really see how much time and patience this will require. Its not going to be, taking this time off so that I can come back this summer for base training, this is going to be more like being out until July and then using the summer to gradually be able to run at all. Meaning XC 2007 is most likely shot. (ARGH)^2.
Sunday 05/13: 61.1 miles, the usual Sunday River Trails ride in 3 hours 42 minutes 53 seconds. 16.5 mph avg, was at 17.1 avg. through 40 miles, but then that little hill at the dam killed me and my lower back started to hurt like hell. Kept HR mostly under 165, felt strong, huge course PR. Definitely channeling a lot of consternation. Mulled over just becoming a cyclist for a year--I just want to be able to train really really hard for something for a long time and be really good at it.
When I was a little kid, my largest career related consternation was, WHEN I won the Olympics (in... something) would I want to be competing for Japan or the United States? The sports would come and go but the dream was always the same (2012 Women's Time Trial gold = me???). Clearly, nothing will have the same depth of emotional significance to me as running, but I want to improve, I want to win, I want to succeed at something, so, so much I feel like my brain is going to pop.
Monday 05/14: Nothing. L knee feels a bit tweaked so was going to stationary bike for an hour but ran out of time. Instead, baked delicious edibles for Will's send-off party. Lucky bastard is focusing on training for a year before the crushing responsibilities of being a working person set in!
Tuesday 05/15: Did manage to get up early to ride around the Rose Bowl, but had to turn back after 10 minutes due to excruciating pain in L knee. Resisted efforts to ignore and hope it would just go away. Arghhh, now I'm really screwed! Presumably this is because my cleat is misaligned but for the life of me I can't figure out which direction to adjust it in order to fix this...
Wendesday 05/16: Day of Judgment, visit to the doc. It took him all of 2 minutes to proclaim it a stress fracture, which had been the unanimous diagnosis of all who had looked at it... but strangely enough, it actually wasn't. Instead its something more nebulous and scary, what we all thought was the kink or the calcification around the fracture, turned out to be my grotesquely distended joint. Apparently it is swollen so horribly that it is pushing my bones apart and separating my joint, and further progression will actually dislocate my toe! Eeeeeee!
The worst part is that there isn't really a treatment, per se. You just kind of do what you can to make the swelling go down and hope for the best. And in some cases, it doesn't and then you have to have this horrifying surgery that shortens the metatarsals and raises your arch. Gah... So with that, I've been shoved into a flat shoe and packed off on a red eye flight to the east coast. Boston for a week to help the folks move.
Thursday 05/17 - Saturday 05/19: Cold and rainy, which I suppose is alright since I'm not allowed to run or bike anyways. Nothing, except moving boxes. Swelling as gone down a little bit, but the flat shoe is really painful for the arches, heels, ankles. Realized that the main problem is that a shoe that prevent forefoot flexion mostly also prevents ankle flexion, because the only way one can really walk is by picking up the whole lower leg at the knee and stomping it down a bit in front of you in one piece. The atrophy of the ankle, arch ligaments is what causes so many issues once the actual injury is healed, assuming it ever heals. I see a lot of physical therapy ahead of me, but lets take one step at a time, for now just have to work on getting the swelling down and be able to bend that joint at all.
4 comments:
I'm confused by the use of "consternation." Is that even a real word?
If one cleat is mis-aligned but the other one feels good, just adjust the bad one until they both look the same. You can use the pattern on the bottom of the shoe for reference.
And with regard to the insane toe swelling, what you should do is soak your foot in a bowl of ice cubes & water for 15 minutes as many times each day as you can stand.
Of course consternation is a real word. To really understand the definition, however, I'm afraid you're going to have to spend some more time with Megumi. Like Shakespeare before her, Ms. Abe has made the word her own in ways that are hard to explain.
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