Why This Might Actually Be A Good Thing

OK, I'm gonna blog this out before I change my mind cause it's not exactly easy to rationalize a fairly serious running injury such as a Jones Fracture into something positive, but here goes...

To quickly summarize the issues my body was facing on a semi-regular basis throughout all of 2010 and even some of 2009

Fatigue / Over training Testing showed a strained adrenal system and low vitals

Right Achilles Flaring regularly and sometimes preventing me from walking without a limp

Right Ankle Significant enough to force me to get an MRI which revealed lingering long term damage that had been aggravated through heavy mileage

Right Foot In the EXACT area that I broke my foot I had done so once before, albeit almost two decades ago. However, for many years now everything from ski boots to cycling shoes seemed to aggravate the area and I had been wondering for upwards of six months if I had a hairline fracture in my foot as it was.

Left Hip The most significant of the injuries and not so much in terms of the overall severity to my body, but more so because it was the one injury that actually forced me to stop running. After completing the East Coast Trail I was unable to run for more than 15-20min without my left side shutting down on me. In the two months following the ECT the longest run I could muster was just over an hour and I ended up regretting it for days afterwards as it only set back my recovery time.

SOOOOO, if you look at the overall picture of a slightly broken body what might be the ONE injury that could potentially force all of these issues to simultaneously recover? The answer of course is a broken foot, and only on the right side. A broken leg would be a far more serious injury to rehab from, and anything on the left side would have only exacerbated the nice list up above. As it stands right now my entire right ankle structure has been frozen in place for six straight weeks, I've been forced into a lengthy break in which I have most certainly rested and recovered from all of my fatigue symptoms, AND my left hip has been thrown into a full on daily workout that has only served to strengthen the area and force the glute med and glute max to finally fire properly.

Now I'm not about to suggest that this has been easy or enjoyable for even five minutes, but they say, and I believe, that everything really does happen for a reason. I'll be the first to admit that it is rare to appreciate or understand those reasons in the moment and this may be true here as well, however that hasn't stopped me from trying to piece it all together. Whether this makes any true sense or not, it has allowed me to sleep better and relax a bit more. In five short days the actual truth will be revealed as this cast comes off and a subsequent x-ray tells the full story of what's transpired in my foot over the last six weeks. Assuming I get good news, and I really am feeling like I will at this point, then ideally this can only ever be viewed as a minor initial setback and maybe even something beneficial in the long term.

GR