For those of you who follow my workouts on Strava, you may have noticed that I haven’t run for well over a week.  This is not because I have been lazy, but because I am being careful with some pain in my foot.  I started back up today by running on the treadmill.

In January last year, I had a stress fracture in my left foot.  Leading up to that diagnosis, I had been aware of some subtle pain in my foot, for some time.  The pain was very minor, so I essentially ignored it and kept running.  I ran a lot.  Over time the pain got a little worse and then after a long run in early January, my foot swelled up significantly.  That swelling was the final indicator to me, to stop running.  It was too late however, I had developed a stress fracture.

Fast forward to a week past Wednesday.  That evening, I had some pain in my left foot.  That day I had done an aggressive run, with hill repeats and also a swim, where I was pushing hard off the pool wall.  The pain in my foot was very familiar.  It felt the same as those early signs last year. The pain was also in the exact same spot in my foot, as the location of the fracture.

I shut down my running immediately.  Luckily, the shut down coincided with my down week, so it meant I wasn’t impacting my training schedule significantly. 

Today, I started the Peak phase for my race in five weeks.  My foot has improved a lot, so I chose to run today.  To minimize impact stress on my foot, I have decided that, for the next few weeks, I will do all of my running on the treadmill. 

Hopefully, the issue in my foot stays under control.  I am so looking forward to racing and I am doing what I can, to not jeopardize getting to the start line.  It will be interesting to see if there is any adverse reaction to me running again.  Right now, my foot feels all right; hopefully that is the case in the morning.