Not getting much better, unfortunately

My foot is really driving me nuts as of late. After sustaining a stress fracture (actually, stress reaction) after the San Diego marathon in late June, I have been doing absolutely no running in an effort to let my foot heal. I have been continuously swimming and biking at this time, sometimes intensely, but I am quite certain that both these activities are not aggravating my foot.

Well, after several weeks of definite improvement after a nearly 8 week hiatus from running, I decided to try out 2 miles of running on the treadmill. As much as I hate running indoors, it felt great to get running again, and I felt surprisingly strong on my legs given my time off. (Cross-training definitely works to some degree.)

Unfortunately, things went quickly downhill from there. My foot pain went from nagging to annoying, and despite no further running for the next 5 days, it continued to worsen. Today, I've been struggling with a sore left foot, which has somehow actually become point-tender over the region of pain. I'm pretty much back to how I was feeling about 4-5 weeks ago, with almost no improvement. Very, very disappointing.

I've got an upcoming appointment with the doctor in a week, and I will plan on getting a followup MRI to make sure things are looking in order. I doubt that I've re-injured it, and I'm hoping that I'm just facing a re-hab period that will be somewhat uncomfortable and at times painful, but before I go for it, I'm definitely going to clear myself with the imaging.

In the interim, plans have become nearly definite for my becoming an interim triathlete with a bike & swim focus. I am debating between the purchase of a pricey Cervelo P1 or P2SL ($1800) versus an world-class all-carbon bike that I can ride for the next decade and more ($2500!!). I am also currently in the midst of applying for radiology fellowships in musculoskeletal radiology, so things have been busy as of late, but once I get all my papers in, I will be going all-out on the triathlon buildup.

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to bail on my second planned race this year, which was the swim-run duathlon in Malibu, which is taking place this weekend. I would have loved to test my new swim skills in open water, but alas, I would probably exacerbate my running injury.

Interestingly enough, I still feel like a marathoner. I may be very out-of-shape with regards to running long distances, and there is absolutely no way that I could even complete part of one in my current condition, but I do feel that my mental desire and my physical ability is still there, and just waiting to burst out at the next moment. By maintaining a very active workout regiment with 60-120 minutes of run/bike per day, I've also maintained the discipline to keep a major athletic pursuit in my schedule. No slacking here! I'm mentally rearing to give the Pfitz another go, but will probably divert my energy to biking and swimming until I'm sure that I can give it a good shot on the run. But watch out all you SoCal age group runners - when I'm back, I'll be coming back strong!