I came home and things continued as they were. I had Mooseman only three weeks later and I had more training to do. One day I went out on a routine run and right in the middle I just felt like something went in my foot, right where it had been bothering me but recently had become much more tolerable. Well, this time it stopped me in my tracks. I tried to run a few steps again and immediately stopped. I stood still for a little bit longer, walked it off a bit and then decided to start running again. Well, it certainly hurt more than it had before, but I was able to finish the run and decided that was just how it was going to be for a while.
Fast forward after a few more awful runs and some normal biking and swimming and suddenly it was time for Mooseman again. It was a beautiful day for a race and unfortunately I was not in a place to take advantage of it. The swim was chilly but not too bad, the bike was atrocious because the course is a monster and mentally I just wasn't into it. When I got to T2 I honestly wasn't sure even before I put my shoes on if I was going to continue. But I slowly changed into my run gear and decided I didn't feel that bad and I might as well go out and run.
Well, at least the first mile was good. In fact, it was probably the fastest mile I'd run in months. But the further I went, the more I just didn't think my foot felt right. And it didn't seem to me to be the smartest idea in the world to keep going. So after three miles, I stopped at a med tent and hitched a ride on a golf cart back to the start. Was I disappointed? Kind of, sort of, but not really. As I said, I wasn't mentally there at the time so not finishing, especially when I felt like I might do further damage, seemed better than walking my way to a 3+ hour run split.
Instead I enjoyed watching my teammates have good races and then of course made an appointment pretty quick to get my foot checked out. First on the agenda was... not an x-ray. But I was recommended to go visit a podiatrist, who I couldn't get an appointment with for a week and a half. So I continued on, wondering how in the world I was going to do an Ironman in a couple of weeks. I had never felt less enthusiastic about an Ironman.
Finally, June 20th, I got my podiatrist appointment. He checked out my foot, pushed and prodded and then said he was going to do an x-ray just to rule some things out. Well, the technician put the x-ray up on the wall before the doctor came back and even I could tell that it was definitely broken. Was it upsetting? I guess it's annoying, but it sure does explain a whole lot. It's been at least six weeks since this has been bothering me. But I didn't think it was a stress fracture because it didn't seem to hurt as much as the last one I had. See, the last one was the third metatarsal on my right foot and there was just no way I could even try to run on it. This one was the fourth metatarsal on my left foot so I could sort of just run off the inside of my foot and not put pressure on it. At least it's nice to know that my problem isn't all in my head and I don't have to feel so bad about not finishing Mooseman. As well as having an injury with a definite healing point.
So my trip to Coeur D'Alene was canceled and I was out an entry fee. And sometime before February I'm going to have to take some flights on Southwest to use the money I have there. Did you know that aside from their consistent $50 bike fee, which is the cheapest you'll find except for the few random times they might not charge you at all, but you can cancel or change a flight with no penalty? I can use all of the money spent on that flight to go towards another one. Also, unlike Lake Placid, there was no crazy cancellation fee on the hotel room, so I could just cancel that no problem. It sucks, but it could've been worse.
So for now I'll be doing a lot of open water swimming, getting some bike rides in, hopefully spending a good amount of time at the lake driving people around on the boat because I'm the next-most-competent one. (I think I was the only one who Dad wouldn't get nervous when the boat was taken out by someone other than him.) I'm also really, really looking forward to going to Lake Placid and not racing. I love that town. I've said before that I could probably live there. And while going there to race is great, as I'd done it for seven years in a row, I'm even more looking forward to going there and just enjoying the town and not having to worry about not walking around too much or staying up too late. And of course watching my friends have great races.
So, there it is. My first year without an Ironman since 2003. Thinking about it that way, maybe that's not such a bad thing. Maybe this is what I needed. Just a forced rest and a complete do-over. I'll just have to keep my bones intact from now on so I can find my running stride again.
Oh, and one last thing. I think that was the first time in my life my left foot had ever been x-rayed. Well, this x-ray not only confirmed my stress fracture, but it confirmed my long-believed suspicion that I broke my foot my freshman year of college playing basketball. He mentioned he could see that it looked like there was a fracture at some point on the outside of my foot that never really healed quite right. I'd always thought that little protrusion on the outside of my foot didn't look right. But, well, my freshman year there were only five of us on the team. I'd recently severely sprained my right ankle and was playing with that all taped up. Then I felt something definitely wrong with my left foot, but we wound up just taping that foot up, too and letting me play every minute of every game. It's hard when you really don't know which foot you're supposed to be limping on.
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