I'm feeling a little "Why me?" today, as my husband recovers from a half marathon he ran all by his lonesome on Sunday while I sat at home and sulked. Really, why did I end up with a stress fracture?
The fracture is in my second metatarsal, and I can pinpoint exactly where: not only did it swell and bruise right over the spot, it is incredibly painful to the touch, to the point that I'll see stars if I press on it (I don't sit around pressing on it for fun, that was just diagnostic). This is a common site of stress fractures in the feet, and are especially vulnerable in runners with bunions, which I have.
Honestly, I don't know how I could have prevented this fracture except by modifying my training plan. It's not due to bone density problems. If you've been reading forever, you may recall the really cool
DEXA scan I got for free back when I had my last stress fracture. My bone density looked excellent, and I doubt that in a few years it made a sudden and unprovoked swing into osteopenia territory. Plus, I am not in a risk category for fractures due to bone mineral loss. I am not post-menopausal, I am not underweight or overweight, I eat a healthy diet, and I even take a supplement called "Bone-up"!
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I eat generally quite well: I like to cook, and almost everything we eat is from scratch, with very few processed foods (except I do love spicy chips and cheese crackers as a snack, but we're talking on top of healthy foods, not instead of). We have a lot of raw fruits and vegetables in our diet, plus cooked vegetables twice a day as well. We probably eat an average amount of meat. It's rarely the focal point of the meal, a holdover from my hungry and miserable vegetarian childhood, but I think I get enough to have all the main nutrients in abundant supply. I've never had blood work that revealed any sort of nutritional deficiency.
During this training cycle, I did try to do all the "little things" - stretch, strengthen, foam roll on occasion. Before each run I did my hip exercises, and after each run I either stretched or fit in one of Coach Jay Johnson's post-run routines (per our group coach, we were supposed to do these every day, but they are time-consuming). I did a weights routine once or twice a week and core once or twice a week. I definitely could have done better, especially in the post-run routine category, but I did more than I usually do. The one thing I didn't do well on was recovery, especially sleep. I've been extremely busy this fall, and I started sleeping less and less. I never get a lot of sleep - six hours is fine for me, over seven and I'd feel groggy and ill - but now I was maxing out at five. Weirdly, I wasn't tired at all, and in retrospect that might have been the cortisol talking: I could have been producing a lot of cortisol in response to stress, maybe due to overtraining. That could negatively impact bone strength, too, but all of this is just guesswork.
The point is, the only reason I fractured my foot was good old fashioned overuse. I ran too many miles, too fast, too soon for my body. I loved every minute of the process, but it was more than I could handle. I don't regret it, though. Sometimes you have to push your body to find out your limits: limits of ability, and limits of strength. I guess I found my break-down point, but in the process I ran several PRs and felt progress for the first time in years, since before I had my hip surgeries. I might feel different a few weeks from now when I'm itching to run and bored out of my mind, but for now, I don't regret a thing.
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