Patience is a Virtue

Recovery from the stress fracture in my tibia has been slow. Admittedly slower than I was expecting. However, this is the most patient I've ever been with an injury. I really struggled with the recovery from my bike crash in New Zealand. Since then, I have matured as a person and as an athlete to realize it's not the end of the world. Sure, it's a set back and frustrating at times but like all things, it too shall pass. 

Mid-November is when I got the diagnosis and then I went straight into a boot for over 6 weeks. Ah the struggles of a boot. First it's the struggle of finding a left shoe that's roughly the same height as the boot. Then comes different socks. Second, it was accepting the fact that I was creating muscular imbalances. I picked a horrible time to read a book talking about how many injuries stem from your feet. At times I'd be in a panic thinking how being in a boot was going to cause so many other injuries once I got out of it. Surely there was SOME exercise I could do to maintain some strength! Nope. I had to be completely immobilized since the stress fracture was where a muscle attached to the bone. 

The complete immobilization meant obviously no running and only walking in the boot. EXTREMELY limited strength training and only very short cycling sessions on the trainer in running shoes. I could swim but no pushing off the wall with that foot or any kicking. It mostly left swimming with a buoy and upper body lifting. Oh joy, just what I wanted... to really work on that upside down triangle look some more. 

Since I couldn't do much, I focused on what I could do. I used the time in the pool to really focus on technique. There was one aspect to my swim form I'd been putting off changing and I was determined to use that time to correct it. Which I'm happy to say I did. At least one positive came out of this experience. Strength training was mostly a challenge of how creative I could be with only doing exercises primarily laying down or sitting. 

I went through the entire holiday session with the boot: Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years. On January 2nd, I was finally given the green light from the doctor to take it off and slowly return to activity. A little over a week later I went to Norway which meant the only activity I could do was walking in snow. Then I got sick from my husband. All this slowed down my gradual return to training. 

And slow it's been. I did part of my swim warmup wearing SIM shorts so I could do a light kick. I added weight bearing (body weight) into strength training. I added 15 minute walks into my training schedule. From there, I swam more and more without a buoy. Eventually I got to actually hold small weights during exercises. Walks slowly increased in time and eventually pace. Cycling increased in time, with some intervals at an aerobic effort. Never higher. Still in running shoes.

Where am I today? Back to fully smashing myself in the pool. Strength training is almost back to the full range of exercises I can do. I was given lots of single leg/balance exercises from my PT. My walks are up to an hour at a steady pace. Now I've been given the ok from my PT to start slowly clipping in for parts of my trainer rides. Once I'm built up to 100% clipping in pain free, I can start the slow process of reintroducing running. 

My recovery can mostly be summed up as: SLOW. But I shall continue being patient and smart. Better safe than sorry.