The last 12 days have been a bit of a roller coaster in the running world for me. On Saturday, March 2nd during my 7 mile run the top of my foot began to hurt considerably. I stopped and re-tied my shoes and continued on. I finished with some discomfort, but not as bad as during the run.
Through reading a lot of different running blogs and speaking to several runners it was looking like a stress fracture; a sure sign of over-training. Many long distance runners are affected by these due to the increase in mileage for training. I surely did not want this to be my diagnosis as I have several races that I was wanting to participate in this spring and some of those have already been 'paid' for.
I began to chat with Camille Herron a well known marathoner from Norman, Oklahoma. She provided me some great tips on things I could do to improve my running performance and perhaps help my foot situation. She is not a doctor, but she has had 7 stress fractures and definitely has some common sense and experience with the issue. I decided to cross-train a few days last week and take things easier. I changed the lacing pattern of my laces and used a combination of ice and sports cream to manage the pain I was still experiencing. I also spent several days on the stationary bike at the gym and logged many miles and still maintained some solid cardio work and as my former cross-country coach from Allen County would call it: Active Rest. I made an attempt to jog on the treadmill last Tuesday and made it through 2 miles, but with some discomfort. So I continued the biking and pain management.
On Monday, March 11th, I ventured out with one of our local running organizations and was feeling very good that day. The day before I had spent about an hour in the pool and my foot was feeling the best it had been since hurting it. I switched into a pair of my shoes from last year and took off for a very easy paced 5K. I ran around an 8:45 mile pace and didn't feel any pain. I had been running between 7:50-8:20 minute per mile paces on my runs and from what Camille told me that is too fast for slow training runs. I needed to slow down significantly to allow my body to rest and recover properly. Turns out I have been running around 80% of my race pace for every training run and that was an injury waiting to happen.
On Wednesday morning I got up and went out for a brisk, early morning jog. It was my intent to cover 3.1 miles at a slower pace. Trying to run a 10 minute per mile pace is almost painful when you are used to running close to 8 minute miles. I did settle into a trot and managed to knock out a slower paced run and didn't have any pain. So we will see how the 'Run Slower, Run Further' approach goes that Camille introduced me to. It does make sense and in college we called it LSD (Long Slow Distance). So why not slow down and save my body some pain and discomfort and allow for proper healing and help my overall running season.
Here's to running slower and running further!
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