Day 55 & 56 - The beginning of the end

My taper has officially begun!! A 9.5 mile "long run" just isn't right! But I'm really not complaining. I've been stuffy, had a runny nose and headache for the past 6 days. To top it off, our long run on Saturday started out by me completely biting it on the ground. Silly pitch-black morning runs. My right leg/shin has continued to hurt, despite icing and ibuprofen. I've been trying to take care of myself, resting as much as possible, wearing supportive shoes as much as possible, etc. After today's measly 3.5 mile run with the pain feeling no better than it did last Monday, I made an appointment at the sports injury clinic at my hospital. I knew regardless of what the MD said, I was probably going to still keep running. I was just hoping he'd have some advice to help, or at least not further hurt myself. So I came home from work, woke the kids up from their peaceful naps and loaded them into the car for the appointment. Luckily I had time to gather up some good behavior bribery items (markers/coloring book/new matchbox car/tiny play doh container/swedish fish). Worked like a charm because the kids were really good. Caroline didn't really want me to go get the x-ray done, but a nice PT came in to entertain her. Aren't those PTs just the nicest people?! Anyway, the x-ray showed no stress fracture. Hooray!! Apparently they can take 2-4 weeks to show up on an x-ray though, so I'm not out of the woods. The pain appeared after my 20-miler, about 9 days ago. There was no sign of healing activity around the bone, so I guess that's good too. I was given some exercises and stretches to do and told to call back in a week if the pain isn't gone or at least better. Then he would do a bone scan for a definitive diagnosis. He also told me in no uncertain terms that there would be "no marathon" if the bone scan came back positive for a stress fracture. I feel kinda silly that this really could just be shin splints. I hadn't been doing any of my shin splint exercises, because the pain was so much more intense than my typical shin pain. My right calf has been one big ball of muscle knots for the past few weeks, so it does make sense. Perhaps it will help me mentally to know that with each step my right tibia isn't going to break in half.... So the ball is in my court and I will call back if I'm not feeling better. Mmmm....maybe? We'll see.

As a side note, he did point out two spots on my right tibia that showed previous damage. He said severe illness, a break, trauma, stress, etc could cause these rings (like rings on a tree). But these were from childhood....like early teenage years. Interestingly enough, I've never had any sort of damage or trauma. I did aerobics and dance when I was younger, but nothing serious. Just kind of interesting. And with that, I'm off to stretch and do my exercises (and pray for complete and utter healing for M-day).