Finally Feeling Fine

There is really no singular point in coming back from an injury where you exclaim "I'm Back!".  Its a gradual return, via run/walks and post workout self evaluations.  You run, you stop, you think, "is it better?", if the answer is "yes" you rest a day and run again.  If the answer is "no", you rest 2 days, cross train, rest another day, and then try that run again.  Once you are back to doing 4-5 miles, its safe to try a bit longer distance.  After attempting longer than 6 or 7 miles you should really wait 2 full days to run again.  When you come back from injury, if you suddenly think you are 100% and go pound out 10 miles you could very well end up back on the couch resting.  I still hesitate to say I'm completely fine, but lets put it at about 95% injury free.

Keeping all that in mind, I feel like I am almost fully recovered.  I had some strange pains during my first few runs back, some of these pains involved the injured area (fibula stress fracture), some were actually elsewhere on the leg.  Soreness in my foot, very sore lower calf, and the weirdest thing was this fatigue in my quad whenever I took a good "stomp" while walking.  Fortunately, I have read many places that this is normal when coming back from an injury that caused you to rest 6-8 weeks.

Speaking of 6-8 weeks, that turned out to be a pretty accurate time table for coming back from a lower leg stress fracture.  Apparently it is scientifically proven that bones heal in about 6 weeks (providing you take the proper precautions and don't re-injury anything).  And it was about 6 weeks until I was feeling completely normal walking.  About 6.5 weeks in I did a few short runs where there was still a bit of pain.  A week later I was running but had those weird sore spots and "phantom" pains.  I have kept up the cross training, spinning once a week with a bit of elliptical sprinkled in there too.

Last Saturday I ran 7 miles with my running club DC Road Runners.  I took a conservative approach, running 3 on roads, 3 on a trail, and then 1 more back to our meeting point near Iwo Jima Memorial in Arlington.  I ran 5 with a fun run group Tuesday and still had a bit of calf soreness.  Tonight I ran 6 miles with the same fun run group at a pretty speedy pace (7ish minute miles).  I felt incredible, like I was "back", full of energy, pain-free  and general pep.  Hanging out at home after I still felt a tinge of soreness in both the front of the lower leg and in the calf.  Lets hope a rest day takes care of that.

Cautiously Optimistic is a good term to describe my last couple of weeks and my next few.