Give me a break!

Last weekend, while in Tennessee, I ran 17 miles and felt fairly good, last four were tough but still not bad at all. I was encouraged and sure I could at least complete a marathon.

Took the next day off as a rest day and was ready to run Tuesday. Ran a moderate 3.1 mile run and felt really good. That afternoon I flew to Toronto for business and no problems at all.

But when I woke up Wednesday morning to go for an early run, my left ankle hurt. Figured I had somehow slept on it wrong so took the day off. It hurt all day long. Next day I decided to not run again . . . still hurting. But better.

Here it is Saturday and it's still hurting. Not to walk, but if I cross my leg while sitting it hurts. Something is obviously really wrong!

Given how it developed (slowly) and given the time after my long run (three days) I'm pretty sure it's not a ligament or tendon injury. That leaves a stress fracture.

I had a stress fracture years ago and this feels much the same. No need to spend $ going to a doctor to confirm. There is nothing they could do to speed the healing along anyway. So I'm just going to take two weeks off . . . no running. So I'll try it again November 3rd. I may wait and simply go to OBX and try it out on a marathon! That would be three weeks off!

The other option is to start back around Nov 8-9 and then do Medoc Dec 6th. That would give me a chance to get some running in between the 9th and Dec 6th.

I'm leaning to going to OBX . . . it's my only chance to achieve my goal this year (average running at least a marathon a month in 2008).

But even if I can't 2008 has been a pretty good running year!