Anyway, Andrew and I started warming up a little before 8:30, and aside from feeling extremely sluggish I had no problems whatsoever. I got back, changed into my racing attire, and headed to the line to do a few strides. At this point I was actually starting to feel decent, and when the gun fired I assumed low-6 min pace, which was my target, and proceeded up the long 3/4 mile hill that starts the race. I went from about 30th place 200 meters in to 4th by the top of the hill, with only Andrew and two other 5k guys ahead of me. By the time the 5k and 10k split apart at the cemetery, only Andrew was ahead of me, and while I felt like I was working a little harder than maybe I wanted, I was actually feeling pretty good.
I hit the 2-mile mark in 12:08 with a 5:58 2nd mile and took a look back to see what my lead was. There was one guy who was fairly far back but at least hanging around, so I decided to continue at my current effort through the turnaround then reevaluate. The third mile includes a long, tough climb that gets steep at the very end followed by a long gradual downhill. I handled it fine, hit the turnaround, and glanced at my watch so I could figure out what my lead was (which worked out to be over a minute at that point). Shortly after making the 180 around the cone, however, my foot started hurting. At first it was no big deal but it got worse quickly. By 4 miles, it was actually bad enough that I knew I was in trouble and I considered dropping out. However, I figured the damage was probably done at that point, and if this was going to be my only race of the year I had might was well try to finish and get the win.
I altered my form a little to run more on the inside of my foot, and that helped enough to get me to the line, but I was hurting big time. I ended up running 38:08, which was well under my goal of sub-40, and if it hadn't been for the injury, I would have been really happy with that effort and getting the win on top of it. For those wondering, second place was only a little over a minute back, so I couldn't have run much slower and still gotten then win. Oh, and in the last 200 meters what I've known was gonna happen one day finally happened and I knocked some kid down who stepped right in front of me. I felt bad and went back through the chute to apologize to him, but there was nothing I could have done to prevent it. When you're moving that fast downhill it's just not possible to stop and/or change direction quick enough to dodge someone who steps right in front of you. If only those kids would learn to walk/run in a straight line!
In any event, as I walked through the parking lot back to the car, I guess whatever adrenaline I had wore off quickly and I realized just how bad my foot was hurting. I didn't even attempt a cooldown and couldn't have even if I'd been dumb enough to try. It was all I could do just to get around the rest of the day, and as I type this, my foot is extremely sore, fairly swollen, and has a huge bruise on it. The pain is very similar to what I experienced with the original break, so I'm 95% sure I re-fractured it. The only difference is it's not quite as swollen as it was originally and I didn't have any bruising last time. I'm going to make an appointment to see an orthopedist as soon as I can get in, but that could be a week or more. In the meantime, I'm just going to have to stay off it as much as I can (I'm back using crutches), ice, and do bone stim.
Needless to say, I'm kind of in shock and disbelief because I had no warning signs this was going to happen. It's not like my foot had been sore over the past few days or it was hurting early in the race or anything like that. It had also handled what workouts I'd done just fine and had no problems after a hilly, 13.5 mile long run last weekend. Instead, it came on suddenly and that was that. I almost wonder if doing the 180 around the cone at race pace torqued it or something. Regardless, I almost have to believe it was bound to happen at some point or another, and if that's the case I would rather it happen now before I got in really good shape and had some big races coming up than say next spring when I might have been fit and seeking to run some fast times. Everything I read last time from medical journals right on down said that athletes need to get Jones Fractures repaired by a screw. Otherwise they had a very high rate of recurrence once training was resumed even if there was a gradual buildup back to activity. In other words, if you're a regular person just walking around, it will heal good enough, and mine obviously had for that. However, if you're an athlete, the odds are it's not going to hold up to the rigors and stresses of training and competing and that seems to be the case with me.
So, now I wait. Hopefully I'll have an official diagnosis and a treatment plan within a few days. I'll post an update when I do. I'm extremely disappointed, frustrated, and discouraged, but I've been here before and know how to handle it, so I'll make it through and be back on the roads hopefully before the end of the year. I just hope 2011 is better than 2010!
No comments:
Post a Comment