I went to see the doctor on Wednesday March 31. I had to get another set of x-rays done. After having me move my ankle in all different directions, he told me that I could start running on it again and to let up if I started feeling any pain. I told him that I run barefoot and to my surprise he was actually quite supportive and interested. He didn’t know the exact cause of my injury, and although felt I was well enough to start running, he wants to continue seeing me and x-raying the leg on a monthly bases. So although I don’t have any definitive answers about what happened and how to keep it from happening again (and probably never will), I do have my own theory.
I was pretty much living a sedentary life before I started running. In the first year of running I didn’t train very hard and I was only running 8 to 10k per week. The second year I decided to run the half marathon in Hamilton. In July I ramped up my running to about 40k per week plus track workouts. I was only running and not doing any cross-training with other exercise. At the end of that year I got the fracture after running a few k’s in cold temperatures without warm-up or stretching. Since bones thicken to support muscles but at a slow rate compared to the muscles. I believe that the muscles had strengthened too fast for the fibula to support it under the conditions that I was running under. The tight tendon and strong muscle pulled the fibula apart creating the stress fracture.
The doctor didn’t agree with my theory, but until I hear something better, I’m going to stick with this one.
