Injured Life Update

I’m now at week 9 of injury, and I’ll be honest, it feels like it’s been a lot longer than just over 2 months. The weeks are however ticking by, and I am just taking each day as it comes. I am focusing on MY journey, and no one else’s.

How is the foot?

Last week I went for a follow up scan to check how the fracture was getting on. The good news is it is healing well. The bad news is, it isn’t healed yet. Therefore it’s going to be a little longer before I can get back running.

Mentally I had prepared myself for it to be healed, which I shouldn’t have done. No injury recovery is linear, and 6-8 weeks is just an estimated guess. Therefore it wasn’t ever a given that it would be healed at 8 weeks. It may be for someone who is just looking to be able to walk, but as we are looking to do a lot more on the injury site, I need it to be 100% healed. Once I had got over the initial disappointment, I looked at what I could and couldn’t do, and this is what I’ll be doing for the next month or so.

What can I do?

S&C training. In terms of strength work, I can do body weight exercises, and some exercises with weight going through the foot. I can do exercises such as RDL’s, but I can’t put impact weight through the foot, such as by jumping on it.
In the pool. Aqua jogging continues to be a prominent feature in my life at the moment on a daily basis. Most of my harder sessions are being done in the pool. I find I can get a more running specific session in the pool than I can on the bike and I find I can work all systems at once a lot more efficiently in the pool. I just play around with rep time lengths for sessions, whilst ensuring I have easy days in between to continue to recover.
Spinning the legs. I am also on the static bike in the gym, and I am building this up gradually in order to get a bit more contact to the foot. On a Sunday, I’ll do my ‘long run’ on the bike, just to get a more extended period of exercise in. If it’s a session done and I’m feeling a bit bored, I’ll turn this into a session with longer reps in it.
Be patient. The most important thing I can do at the moment is to be patient. There is no magic fix, and no quick fix. All my foot needs is time, therefore I have to be patient. I’ve set no time frames, no goal races, nothing. Just focusing on healing, then getting back in shape the best (not quickest) way!

What can’t I do?

Due to the follow up scan showing that the fracture isn’t quite healed yet, I am still limiting the amount of weight bearing I am doing on the foot. If I’m walking around for a decent amount of time, I will wear the boot. If I’m just wondering around the house, I’ll wear shoes instead of the boot, as long as I’m not on my feet for a long period of time. If I am just popping to the kitchen or wandering around, I can go bootless, but that’s about it.

The ‘R’ word still doesn’t feature in my life and likely won’t for another month or so. When I look at the journey ahead, I would always rather go an extra week or 2 without running, than risk starting too soon and being back where I started. There is no point in not being conservative. As much as I’d love to run, there is no sense to doing it now, when I still have a broken foot. I’m in it for the long run.

For the next month, I’ll continue to be cautious with the amount of weight going through my foot. I’ll then reassess the situation in a months time and see how everything is going.

Till then, it’s in the pool to keep fit.