Good news or bad news, I can't quite tell... the doctor's orders are 6 weeks of rest (no running, biking, heavy lifting) which really cuts into my training schedule, but at least it's not a full fracture and I may have "caught it in time" to recover and still train for the half/full-marathon! So, here's how the whole story has been playing out the past couple of weeks...
So my ankle had been bothering me for about a good week or so when running, so I decided to take it easy. I laid off running for a couple of days, did short distance jogs every other day, stopped attending my SWEAT class so that I could workout at my own pace, and started hitting the bikes in HPER to not put undue stress and weight on my ankle. I noticed I only had this "pain" deep in the bone above my ankle when I was running -- when I had pressure on it. Walking didn't bother me. I also started wearing an ace wrap, and that seemed to lessen the pain or load on my leg for light jogs around the track in HPER.
I went into an Alegent Express Care center on Monday, February 8th and got an X-ray taken. Dr. Chen couldn't see any signs in the X-ray of a fracture, so refered me to a sports medicine/orthopedics doctor at Clarkson. I made a visit with Dr. Burt the following Monday at Clarkson, and he confirmed the pain in my leg, and recommended a bone scan. Had the scan this last Monday, February 22nd - and it was pretty cool! They put some radioactive isotope in my blood that emits gamma rays! So they took some 'pictures' of the gamma rays emitting from my body uniformly as the blood circulates, and then again 3 hours later, when it should gather more around my stress fracture if I had one.
The nuclear medicine nurse , Jen (a cutie), said the pictures showed a little concentration of the gamma rays in my leg, so it was a possibility. Note: this was already at least 2-3 weeks now since I'd noticed this pain and I had been 'going easy' with training -- so it may have healed some in that time. This was the same feedback I got from Dr. Burt's nurse Nancy later in the week. So the orders are for no running, biking, or anything but necessary walking to avoid stress on my ankle. If I can get it to heal up good now, I can run hard on it later, and thats the plan! I'd also prefer not to get a full fracture. =)
So, I'm going to concentrate on swimming and upper body work now as I keep training. What I really need to be working on now is FUNDRAISING!!! I have an even longer ways to go with that, so look out for some letters in the mail and fundraising events in the area. Please contribute whatever you can in this one-time donation (tax-deductible to a non-profit 501(c)), to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
Brian
Posted by bwiese at February 27, 2004 10:49 AMI used to be a coach. A couple of suggestions. A valuable exercise you can do at a desk to help build muscle that protect against stress fracture is to imagine your foot as a pen, with your toes as the nib draw out the alphabet in cursive writing. You need only do it once or twice a day. As with any exercise, do it equally with both right and left foot. Do it slowly and methodically, do not rush it, and do it smoothly. You will notice it exercises the muscle running vertically atop the shin. This is a very underused muscle and all the weight training and running in the world doesn't exercise it as much as this seemingly innocuous exercise.
You also might try using a recumbent lifecycle, it shouldn't stress your ankle. Ride on it with little resistent but high revolutions for the same amount of time as you would that run for that day. So if you were to do an 8 mile run on Saturday at a 9 minute a mile pace you should use the lifecycle for 72 minutes. You need to get your body accustomed to time at work so when you return to running you won't bonk out.
Whatever you do, TAKE IT EASY. Test first, then only do what's comfortable and then monitor how you feel the next day. You are the best person to judge your own progress and what feels comfortable and doable. Slow and steady wins the race.
Posted by: conor coffey at March 4, 2004 04:58 PM