Bad Timing

Towards the end of a solid long run a week ago I felt a pain in my left foot. I stopped momentarily and stretched and continued on home. I didn’t think much of the pain until later in the day when it was still there. I had no idea what it might be and thought a good nights rest surely would sort it out. Sunday morning I was scheduled to participate in the Cayman Islands Road Championships. Getting out of bed that morning I could still feel a slight pain, but it wasn’t enough to keep me home. Indeed the road race was an excellent training ride although it was cut short by an unfortunate crash of the peleton. However, I did manage a 40.1 kph average pulling at the front for most of 80 min. until the race was neutralised. During the ride I didn’t feel the pain.

Tuesday I did speed work comprising 10x800m. Starting out I was sceptical because the pain was fairly acute, but I reckoned it would go away as the session progressed. I managed the full set, but it was not without pain in the foot. Although running at speed was bearable, starting and stopping was a strain. In retrospect it was a stupid of me to run the set. I should have stopped straight away when the pain did not go away. Afterwards my foot was very sore.

With my symptoms and history it is very likely that I have stress fracture of the heel bone. These stress fractures are very difficult to diagnose so I can’t be certain, but no matter what it makes sense to treat it as one and rest my foot. With less than 2 weeks to Hawaii this is obviously a less than ideal outcome. I can still cycle and swim, but running is a problem. In the hope that I can run on race day I will do some aqua running this week, but otherwise shift my focus to swimming. I’m in taper mode already so I need to rest anyway.