Failure Pile In A Sadness Bowl

Sunday
Today's title is courtesy of Patton Oswalt, in case it isn't enough for you, know that I have alternates:

Fat 2, Me 1 - End of 1st Quarter
Fat Wins Battle; War Declared Not Over
Supreme Failure As Related Through Injury

Please know that this makes me very sad and angry to write about. It was a beautiful day. Cold, but that really isn't an issue for me especially given the reason I was outside. The plan was to run my 5 mile route. Since I didn't have a long run last week (race) I wanted to do 5 one more time before I increased my distance. I hopped in the car and planted my water bottle at about the 2 mile mark. Back home, right from the first step things felt different. Instead of mild discomfort on the top of my left foot, there was a little pain. Dull, but there. I continued anyway because I'm young and I'm supposed to be resilient. I wasn't pushing myself I was just running comfortably. I got the dirt road portion out of the way first (1.05 miles) in 14:15. Who cares if my foot hurts, what a good time for not pushing hard. Somewhere over the next mile though the pain upped the anty. It was starting to be an obvious pain in my foot. I contemplated cutting the run short. No, I'm young and it's an advantage. I finished the next mile in 13:46. Even with the pain I'm really cruising. By now though I knew the pain was at a level that could not be ignored after this run. In fact I knew that this was probably going to be my last run for at least a few days. Shortly after the 2 mile mark the pain seemed to dissipate. Then about 3 minutes later it came back in a sharp stabbing wave. Then it was gone again for about 15-20 seconds. The waves kept coming every 20 seconds or so. After a couple they were painful enough that I actually made noise when they'd come even though no one was around (they were just that painful). I had an epiphany close to about the 2.5 mile mark that maybe my left shoe was just tied too tight. I stopped and loosened it. A couple steps later the pain was back. Near the 3 mile mark the pain got so intense that when a wave would come I'd actually have to stop for a second. At 3.13 miles my watch said 42 minutes and change. Even with the pain and the stopping I was going to shatter my previous 5 mile time. Then as started back up the big hill I had just run down, my foot went into full revolt. Painful stabbing pain with every step. I could no longer run. I walked up the hill. It didn't hurt nearly as much to walk, no waves, just a little dull pain. At the top of the hill I tried to run again. It lasted for about 2 minutes. It hurt too much to keep running. Luckily I was within a 1/4 mile of my wife's parents house. I walked the rest of the way in mild pain. My mother in-law is a nurse for a surgeon and a podiatrist. Unfortunately the in-laws weren't home. Still I was able to use her phone to have my wife drive a mile down the road and pick me up. I felt like such a failure. Once home we called the MIL and she recommended I elevate the foot, wrap it with an ace bandage, and take ibuprofen to reduce inflammation. Later in the day she came by to look at it. There really isn't much to see. The area looks bigger/swollen compared to my right foot, but some people don't have feet that match exactly. Having it wrapped in the ace bandage made it hurt a very small amount, about the same as having a shoe on. She said I shouldn't need to keep it wrapped, but I should get it checked out. That was already the plan. Since it didn't hurt to just sit there we had ruled out the emergency room a long time ago. It costs a lot more and there isn't much they can do for my foot no matter what is wrong. So the plan is of course no running and go see my doctor tomorrow. Before bed my wife and I read about stress fractures online. Everything that was described... yeah that's my left foot.

Monday
I weighed 308.6 lbs this morning. That is a loss of 4.4 lbs this week, bringing my total weight loss to 58.4 lbs. I didn't eat great this weekend. We went to a local Mexican restaurant on Saturday night and they make their own chips and salsa. The chips are all warm when they bring them to the table. They are impossible to ignore. Next time I'll have to ask them to bring a smaller quantity, cause I turned into the chip destroyer. We didn't get a refill though. Then Sunday's dinner wasn't much better as I had to have a second helping of lasagna. So between that and Thanksgiving and the foot thing those next 8.6 are going to be a tough row to hoe.

I left work early to go to the doctor. He listened to what I had to say and said what I feared, that it sounded like a stress fracture. He sent me across the clinic to get an x-ray. The troubling thing about stress fractures is they don't always show up on x-rays. Sometimes you don't see them until after they've healed. The bone looks different once it's healed from a break. He said if the x-ray didn't show anything thing then he could order a bone scan. That would turn out to be unnecessary though. After consulting with another doctor at the clinic he was pretty sure that the x-ray showed a stress fracture near top of the middle meta tarsal (closer to the ankle than the toes). My first question was how long would I have to be off of it. He said that he wanted to see me again in a month and they'd do another x-ray. My second question was what can I do? He said I couldn't run. Can I walk for exercise? No, no load bearing exercise on your feet. Load bearing, so no biking? While biking would be better than running or walking, I'd still rather you not do any of that for the next month. You could swim. Great I can swim, thanks doc. So that's pretty much that.

There are some very limited options for swimming. They are either costly or of questionable legality, also I don't like swimming. I shouldn't say I don't like swimming, I do, I just don't want anyone else around. I also don't like to move much in the water, I prefer to stand or float. Seriously folks I swim like a hippopotamus. Swimming is out, and we won't even mention the familial logistical nightmare it would pose. I know I need to keep my chin up and figure out a way to stay active. Right now though, it just makes me sad to think I can't run. I'll post something when something happens, but things will probably be slow around here for at least a month. The next doctors appointment is already scheduled for December 19, and it can't come fast enough.