Hope

For a while now I've been living in hope that the injury I sustained to my shin as a secondary issue at Rocky Raccoon isn't as bad as it may appear. There is a difference between hope and denial here and I would consider myself not to have ventured over to the much more dangerous area of denial.

For the past couple of weeks each time I've commenced running the pain in my shin has varied between mild and excruciating. The calf feels as tight as a drum and a particular point in the tibia is extremely sore leading to shooting pains in my leg with each foot strike and push off. At times the pain has almost completely subsided. Plenty of times in the last fortnight I've run for half an hour in a hobbling fashion only for the leg to loosen up as it gets warm and for the pain to die right down. It's meant I haven't been able to do any fast running but that I have been able to get in some decent slower mid length runs (12 - 16 miles). I have added a lot of bike, spinning and strider machine to my weekly regime all of which have been pain free and are helping me build all round strength. 

Nevertheless every night I go to bed hoping that I will wake up in the morning to find the physios work and my stretching, icing etc will have brought the pain down to a lower more manageable level and that I can resume running freely and properly. Today my shin was screaming at me as I got on the treadmill for a short test run of 20 ish minutes. I got off and went back to the physio tonight. 

The prognosis is not good. Best case I have chronic shin splints which will take a couple of weeks no running to get over. Worst case I have a stress fracture that will put me out for up to 3 months. On Wednesday night I will get an MRI to determine what state the damage is at. Until this point I have followed the advice of the physio 100% and he has always managed to get me back on my feet quickly and without further problems. This time I think even he has conceded the problem goes deeper than he had thought and than I had hoped. 

So I have resigned myself to the worst possible fate of having to be off running for a considerable length of time, a longer break than I've had since the MdS in 2006. In that case anything better is a bonus. Relinquishing hope that things are ok when really they're not is actually a weight off of my mind. I have decided that my body knows best and that when the pain is how it is something is clearly badly wrong. If I can cross train in the meantime I will have a hope of keeping some of my half decent fitness levels. If not well then I'm going to have a hell of a job to get ready in time for Comrades and the Grand Slam. Umstead in 5 weeks looks to be a pipe dream right now. 

Good luck to everyone taking part in the Atacama Crossing starting this weekend. In the meantime to those reading who are also injured out there, rest up and heal up good and proper. I am going to try to that's for sure.