Stressly Fractured- again

A few weeks ago I was thinking “wth…..shin splints again?” Obviously I kept running since shin splints aren’t a huge problem- annoying but no reason to stop running. I ran a 4km time trial for cross country, blowing away my time from a month before by over 30 seconds (albeit the temperature in August was a balmy 35 degrees or something, compared to a pleasantly cool 16 in September). The following weekend I ran a “10km” as part of a relay team at the Lakeside Triathlon in a decent time of 38:02 (the course was short by about 140m). The next weekend was the first official meet of the cross country season at Western on the Thames Valley Golf Course. The race was oaky- I started out much too fast and my legs (particularly the right one) were in agony by about 3km in. Being able to run with my teammate Kristen Flanagan was key to me finishing the race in a not too shabby time of 19:03. I was certainly hoping for a faster time than that but it didn’t happen- NBD. (yes I was pretty upset post-race but I’m over it). My legs were in excruciating pain when I woke up Sunday, but, chalking it up to post-race soreness, I went for my 95 minute long run. Monday morning brought no changes to the pain situation so I started to get worried. But, just to make sure it wasn’t post-race soreness, I went to practice Monday night. Clearly not a good idea as I could barely walk Tuesday morning. Bummer. At this point it felt exactly like the stress fracture I had last year, so after copious amounts of tears I went and made an appointment with the sports doc. She agreed with me- probably a stress fracture. I had the bone scan last week (they needed a full body scan for this- someone needs to rethink their healthcare practices….) and the results today confirm what I thought (almost). I didn’t re-fracture last year’s stress fracture but simply have a new one right above where I had one last year. Timeline for recovery is 3 months or more (considering last time it took considerably longer than that I’m not hopeful for 3 months). So it’s back to the pool more often than I’d like and making my ass numb on the bike. What joyful fun…. And cheers to the end of my cross country season….