Positives Everywhere

48 days to go and this is where I’m at.

It’s 21 days since I last ran.

36 days since I ran free of pain and injury.

I can’t remember what it feels like to run.

On Tuesday this week I saw the Sports Medicine doctor and she recommended that I shouldn’t do the event due to the fact that there is a possibility I could hurt the foot again and maybe worse than it already is. I said, “ I hear what you’re saying but....”  After outlining all the reasons that I have for wanting to do this event this year she said ok, this is what you need to do to be a chance of being on the start line. She has put me in a moon boot for six weeks, given the ok to do exercise bike and deep water running , sent me to get a blood test to check Vitamin D levels, given me a bunch of stretches to do and booked me to see her again in 3 weeks.

Her main thing was about the danger of re-fracturing but in my mind I am ok with the possibility of a months long recovery. Obviously I’d prefer everything to work out but if the worst case scenario becomes my reality then I’ll accept that with no regrets.

So for the next few weeks I’ll be on the bike and in the water. I really wish our pool was heated but I spose it aint gonna be too warm in the mountains.

Raffy Boy has loved the bike. I like that I can punt on the horses and watch it all on TVN while I ride.

I was very happy to get the boot because it will aid recovery but even better it means I can wear sports uniform to work for the rest of the term.

Kiki wasn't quite up to running 30 or 40kms but now she can join in my training with me.

See there's positives everywhere, you just gotta look really hard or make stuff up.

Play The Cards You're Dealt.

57 Days to go...........

It was a big day today (Friday 18/3). After having had my foot x-rayed last week with nothing showing up I needed to move on to the bone scan which is the next level of peek-a-boo. For this procedure they inject a radioactive dye into you then scan the affected area four hours later to see if there’s any activity. Activity is bad on these occasions.

As it turns out there was some activity found in my left foot today.

The doctor at Monash then took some further x-rays with the dye still in my foot and I left there with enough good shots to make any papparazzo happy. Next step was to ring my GP and book in to get the full report of what the activity actually meant for me. Luckily there was a spare time in the arvo and I was off to hear my results. Hanging on the outcome was two and a half years of running that had all been leading towards the toughest event I will ever attempt, The North Face 100 which is just 57 days away.

Drum roll please......................You have a stress fracture,

“so obviously that means you won’t be able to do your event”

I should have been shattered but in my head I was just so sure that the statement just given was not quite correct. Right now I am still going to do the event, it’s just that I am going to do it differently to how I first planned. I think my GP could tell I wasn’t taking this as being the end of the line for me. She started explaining why it wouldn’t be possible without any training as the injury needs 8 weeks to recover. With 57 days to go, 8 weeks means I’ll be healed with one day to spare. That’s gotta be a sign. But really it’s not ideal so I am going to have to find other ways to keep some sort  of fitness up while staying off my foot.

The real clincher for me though was when she said that if I did run on it in a few weeks time I wouldn’t do any further damage, it would just be painful is all. At that point it was almost like I’d won the event. I knew for sure I would be on the start line ready to endure whatever the event can throw at me. It was going to be painful anyway, right.

So from here there’s a few things to sort out.

1)      Go see a sports medicine doc asap

2)      Probably be in a moon boot for 2-4 weeks approx.

3)      Hire an exercise bike and get on it.

4)      Swim

5)      Revise event strategy down from a race to an adventure.

6)      Leave enough Panadeine Forte in the cupboard for a couple of hits on May 14.

People started saying to my face along time ago that they thought I was mad. They would then follow up with several big questions that all started with, WHY?

In 57 days time there is a virtual guarantee that I will be asking the same questions of myself mid-‘adventure’. I hope my answer is still simply, that I love it.

Stressful Fracture?????

Today my son Raferty turned 5. By far I think it was the best day of his life. He was smiling and happy from the moment he woke up until just a few minutes ago when he finally fell asleep. This little big boy faced a few challenges today as well. He said goodbye to his night time dummy and nappies. The dummy especially has been a real comfort for Raf for virtually every day of his life. Imagine giving up something like that cold turkey. The boy must have a strong mind.

Today it’s also exactly two months until The North Face 100. ‘The Face’ is a 100km event in the Blue Mountains that I have signed up for. It’s been nearly two years since I first heard about it. Not long after that I started thinking about it and training for it every day. Every training run has been part of the build towards Face, every event I’ve completed has been part of the education needed to attempt the FACE. Every time I’ve had a big night, I’ve made sure I recovered quickly by hydrating massively so I could get out on the trails asap. In my mind the Face has become the pinnacle, the grand final and the ultimate event that I will ever run.

This week I should have probably run somewhere between 100 and 130km. Instead I have done zero. Since my last event I have tried to run four times in 22 days. Each time, in pain. Each run cut short of what I had planned. Something is obviously wrong but as I write I’m still not quite sure of the extent of my injury. An x-ray was taken and I find out in two days if I have a stress fracture in my left foot or not. I would bet Raf’s birthday money that it’s a fracture.

When I started training for this thing I knew the event would be amazingly tough. However the toughest part of the lead up has been the last 22 days. So many things have gone through my mind.

The facts are that I’ve booked long service leave to do the event, paid for flights, paid for accommodation, organised family to be there with me, organised family to look after my two year old while away......on the running side of things, I’ve run thousands of kilometres in all sorts of conditions at all hours of the day and night.

I had been coping fairly well with the injury up until three days ago when the foot started hurting more and more than it ever had. At that point I thought of everything I was going to have to give up. Everything I was going to lose. I had been thinking I’d just be going into the event underdone but now I was pretty sure I wasn’t even going to make it to the start line. Pretty shattered.

Today, 61 days away from the event I learn from a 5 year old who gave up his dummy. He loved that thing for years and the thought of losing it was actually a bit frightening. When it came to the crunch though and life as he knew it changed, he just took it in his stride like it was no big deal. Keeping the dummy was definitely something he wanted to do but right now he’s sound asleep without a care in the world.

If it comes to it and I can’t do the FACE, although life will change from what I had hoped, really not much will be different. I’ve built this thing up in my mind to be big but is it? It’s definitely something I want to do but just because I miss out on a positive, that really shouldn’t put me in the negative.  You can’t lose if you have a crack, even if that crack turns out be a fracture.