Out of the woods - fingers crossed

Oh man, this has been a long haul. 4 months of almost no running and limited cycling. Sure, I should have used to the time to get better at swimming and that was the plan, but never happened. Instead I got a nice belly like the pillsbury dough boy. 

Ok, work has been manic, so it was a good time to scale back anyway.  And I did get a couple of 80 mile bike rides in.  The whole thing was strange...  at first my leg didn't really hurt when walking or sitting around... only hurt when I ran.  Then, after a took a couple of months off, I was getting this dull ache when sitting around or walking.  Finally that seemed to go away and I gave it one more week.  Now I tested it a couple of times, but each time I ran on it, it was clear that the fracture was there - it usually took 2 runs to find out.  The first run, it was just a hint of discomfort; the second run, there was definitely something going on - not extremeley painful and I could have run through it, but bad enough to know I should take a couple of weeks off and let it heal some more.





So at about the 4 month mark I walked/ran a half mile on the treadmill... waited 2 days, then 1 mile... waited 2 days then 1.5 miles.... waited 2 days, then ran 2 miles...  You get the idea.  So last week I ran 3, 4, 5 miles on consecutive days on the treadmill... progression, progression, tempo at 2% incline.  Took a day off yesterday and ran intervals today - oh shit, that hurt - not leg pain, just that my cardio is shot to hell.  1 mile warm up, then 4x800 at 6 min pace with 400 recovery at 10 min pace.  Can you say oxygen debt?  I guess I'm officially out of shape based on how hard that was - maybe just getting old, but glad I did it.  Anyway, I didn't want to run too tired and risk re-injuring myself, so 4x was about right. 

Well, I'll take another day off tomorrow - maybe a light swim after work. Thursday is a 6 mile with 4 at a light tempo, say 7min pace assuming my leg feels good.  Then Saturday is the first day on the trails - hoping to knock out another 6 easy miles.  Baby steps baby.

Bottom line - avoid stress fractures.