Well friends depending on how you look at it, I either got good news or bad news about my foot last week.



If we're looking at it as good news, my foot isn't broken. The X-ray was clean. There's no stress fracture and my doctor things I should still be able to train for and run the half marathon in March.



If we're looking at it as bad news, I have a stress reaction injury in my second metatarsal -- basically right under the ball of my foot. This means it's extremely painful for me to put any weight on it. I have to take a full two weeks off all activity and wear a walking boot.

I can start walking around my house without the boot on next week to see how things go, and I can begin introducing nonimpact cross-training if that goes well. I have another appointment with my doctor in four weeks to see if I can re-introduce running at that point.



Given that my half marathon training was going so well, I'm kind of annoyed. But my doctor thinks if I can keep up the cardio volume starting in a couple of weeks that I will still be able to do the race. I'm a little nervous about that since I had some pretty important long runs coming up, and I don't love the idea of trying to simulate those on an elliptical but I guess we'll see what happens.

Right now, my foot hurts too much to put any weight on it. Assuming it's in a better place next week, I'll start elliptical and other non-impact workouts, and we'll just go from there.

Thanks to those of you who commented yesterday about what could be going on with my foot. It seems a bit better today, though I did spend a decent amount of time rolling my foot over a tennis ball in case it is the start of plantar fasciitis again.

Week three was another pretty good week of training -- though I could have done without some of the brutally cold days.



More days in the 50s please.

I did make one switch to the training schedule last week to fit in my long run on a day when the weather was in the 50s and sunny, rather than doing it on Saturday when it was going to be like 33 and rainy.

I had planned on swapping my cross-training day to Saturday instead because doing a spin workout indoors didn't seem like a terrible idea when the weather was crap. But I ended up sleeping in and going to brunch instead. Oops. I don't feel that badly about it, one extra rest day isn't going to kill me.

Anyway, here's a look at my workouts for the rest of the week.

Monday: 3.5 miles, 33:30, 9:34 per mile

The high temperature on this day was 29 degrees and it was kind of windy on this run, so maybe running along the water wasn't my idea ever. My ears were cold, but at least the cold air didn't burn my lungs too badly.

Tuesday: 2 miles, 19:11, 9:34 per mile

I was dragging after work on Tuesday and my motivation to do this run was pretty nonexistent when I left the office. For half the walk home, I was convincing myself why it wouldn't be all that awful to skip this run, but then I must have picked up a second wind or some endorphins kicked in on the walk because by the time I got home, it seemed silly to skip a super short two mile run.

Wednesday: 3.5 miles, 33:10, 9:29 per mile

Another glorious day where the temperature was in the high 50s, and I overheated in just a long sleeve shirt and capris. Why can't winter weather in DC just never get below the 40s? I think I'd be able to cope with that.

Thursday: Rest

Friday: 5 miles, 47:35, 9:31 per mile

It was gorgeous out again on Friday, which is why I decided to do my long run this day. It was sunny with a bit of wind, and I will say when I was running over the bridge, the wind got to be a bit much, but otherwise, things on this run felt mostly good. My left hip/IT band tightened a bit, but nothing too bad. I've been trying to be really good about remembering to stretch well after runs, but I still might see if I can squeeze in a massage appointment sometime in the next several weeks.

Saturday: Skipped cross-training, extra rest day

Sunday: Rest

Well my average paces on all my runs were pretty ridiculously consistent. I've been trying to find a pace that is comfortable for me, that lets me build up my mileage without leaving me too gassed, and I guess somewhere right around 9:30 has been that sweet spot.

So yesterday afternoon when I was running errands, I noticed I had this weird pain on the bottom of my right foot. I don't know how to describe it other than it felt like I was walking on a bruise that had developed on the ball of my foot.

It wasn't a sharp pain or anything like that, it was more just this annoying thing that happened every time I had to push off that foot to take a step.

There's definitely no visible bruise on my foot, but last night it was a little tender if I pushed on it.

I'm not sure what caused it. If I did something specific to it or if it's a sign that I need to get a new pair of running shoes or if it was just because I was wearing a pair of sneakers with really crappy support while running those errands yesterday.

My training plan calls for a two mile easy run today. I'm debating skipping it and taking a day to let this thing recover. I also may buy some new running shoes. My current pair is six months old, and while I didn't run a ton during the semester with grad school, there's probably more miles on those shoes than I realize.

Anyone else experience anything like this? Tips or thoughts on what it might be are always appreciated.