Bummed

Remember how I was going to the orthopedic this past Monday. I went, and the outcome wasn't bad, but it wasn't good either.

Diagnosis: Stress Fracture

Crap. Just what I was afraid of. While it is very minor, so minor it didn't show up on the x-ray (I honestly didn't expect it to), it is definitely there. I showed the doc the area it was hurting in. He put his thumb there, slightly behind the bone and pushed, and I jumped about 2 feet off the table and nearly decked him. It hurt so bad. He continued to push on other areas, but of course it didn't hurt anywhere else.

Treatment: No high impact activities for 6-8 weeks. There goes my Half Marathon, possibly even my Sprint Triathlon. I was really bummed all Monday and Tuesday. Jon said I was acting as if my best friend died, I even cried over it. I have just put so much work into my running since April, and I am so worried that I am going to have to start all over. I'm also worried that since I won't be running 20 miles a week, I will start to gain the weight back that I lost. Everything just keeps going round and round in my head and I had knots in my stomach thinking about it.

Wednesday was a little better. I starting thinking about other cardio activities that I could do. I have already been going to Spin, so I will definitely keep that up. This is a good opportunity for me to get back into swimming, and I actually brought my suit with me today so I can go straight to the pool after work. I hate the elliptical with the fire of a thousand suns. Really, I despise it. But, in the interest of cardio and not starting over in my running, I will persevere. I don't like it, but I will do at least 30 min on it when I don't do spin or swimming. I would also like to try out the arc trainer. It is at the bigger of the 2 gyms I go to (my membership gets me into 2 Gold's Gyms where I live), and I have always been curious about it. Bev has talked about it, and I have heard other things about it, so I figured I'd give it a go.

I have already put on my calendar 2 races, one in November and the other in December. I was already planning on the one in December, the Savannah River Bridge Run 10k. It is always an awesome race, and I've done it for 3 years now. The November one is the Dayspring 5k here in town, and actually is sponsored by my church. I going to start looking for half marathons in the late spring that I can start training for in January. Although, I don't know if I'll be doing it them, since life plans will most likely change (i.e. I get pregnant, God willing). I totally plan on running and exercising through my pregnancy, as long as the doc says ok and I feel comfortable. But I don't think I'll be running a half marathon.

So, all this brings me to a question:
The Sprint Triathlon is October 4. My 6 weeks of no impact ends on October 5 (whats one day?). Do you think I could do the Sprint Tri, or would that be risking re-injury by just jumping into it like that? 400 yards is swimming, 13 miles is biking, but only 3.1 miles is running. Do you think that running would be too much at once?



Oh, to add one more thing. I removed my Nike+ mini. Since I won't be running for 6-8 weeks, it will start calling me a couch potato, and I can't handle that. Stupid, I know, but that thing has been great motivation and it kills me to look at it and think, "I wish I could be running!" It will return when I can return to running.