Crack

Internet at home is down, so this is written at work. As such, brevity, y'know?

More than a muscle strain. Not shocking. Initial inflammation covered things up. Doc suspected as much, which is why he had me back. "Things", in this case, being two(!?) baby cracks in my fibula. Fairly close together, near enough that a two centimeter (or so) section could nearly have broken off entirely. That would've been a bloody mess, in the literal - not British - sense.

But that didn't happen. And things are filling in nicely. Doc says another 3 to 4 weeks, putting the total at 7 or 8. Which, eh, not thrilled. Could be worse though. Always that.

If we're counting this as just one stress fracture, then I've had two in the last two years. If we're counting each crack, then I've had three.

Flimsy shoe guy who runs highesh volume and breaks bones is not the rep I want, to be clear.

So, at doc's suggestion, I checked my calcium, vit D, and ferritin levels. First two were good. The latter was, to be kind, bottomed the fuck out. Not that it's a primary factor in bone health via any obvious (to me) mechanisms, but low levels do strongly correlate with stress fractures in a few studies done on high school and college cross country teams, and high levels line up with high bone density in old people - per a bunch of other studies I read. Anyway, it seems to matter.

(It is also a primary factor in not racing shitty road marathons, so I've got (another!) excuse. Oxygen matters.)

Anyway, I'm fixing that. With pills. Because I can't eat that many lentils. Feel pretty, uh, normal? But my elliptical/stationary bike times have improved by about 5-10% in a week. So that's not nothing. It is, also, something to keep an eye on going forward. I'll probably train in something a little thicker than a 5k flat too, once actual running can happen again.

Looking forward to that. In the mean time, I've got some lessons to internalize. Namely, if your body can't put itself back together, post-hammering, it matters very little how much hammering you did.