Stress fracture = detour

So a few weeks ago, I went to the doctor to check on the pain in my right groin. After a couple of x-rays and a few pokes, prods, and pushes, I was diagnosed with a stress fracture on the right side of my pubic bone. It's somewhat uncommon, but happens to runners who overtrain. I did. Upon reflection, I'm surprised I didn't do worse damage. I was told no running for 3 weeks, biking and elliptical were okay, and come back pain-free or the doctor would have to do an MRI to see if anything else was wrong. So, I've been on the elliptical (which you can see from the dailymile updates on the right) and biking (more on that in a bit).

I'm a bit disappointed that this happened, although I know I could have done worse damage from my overtraining. I realize what I probably did that contributed to most of the problem. Since March, I had run outside 4 days a week, running faster each week as I lost weight. Even on my long runs, I pushed to go faster. The Get in Gear Half-Marathon in April and the Minneapolis Marathon in June were PR runs for me, which is great, but training to set those PRs caused me to overdo it. A lot. I had planned on a 4 week recovery from the Minneapolis Marathon before starting a summer of base training in preparation for the WDW Marathon Weekend training I had planned to start on Labor Day. The last four years, I had started my marathon training on Labor Day, as it worked out schedule-wise to do so. This year, provided I'm cleared to run by Labor Day, I'll move into my training, but be much smarter about it.

Currently, I am doing 3 days of elliptical and 1 day of cycling (on Saturday, in lieu of my long run). I plan to keep at least one day of elliptical and the cycling day in my training schedule, with 3-4 days of running. Of course, as the weather changes in the fall and winter, I'll probably only get outside 1-2 days a week and that will only help me. I'm increasing my core work and weight training to a level that is about where it should have been months ago (never been good about keeping up the core work). I'm going to stretch now, too. I also saw a chiropractor last week, who wants to see me a couple more times to adjust my right side, and she will also give me some stretches to do, too.

Part of me is very frustrated that I kept pushing, but I really enjoyed getting out early in the morning to go for my runs. Even the two weeks of recovery runs I did seemed to go well, except, of course, for the pain in my right upper thigh area, as I referred to it on dailymile and Twitter. I know now that I have to be much more careful so that I can run for many years. The more I pay attention to my body, the better I will run, and the more I will enjoy getting to run.