The last injury update I'm going to write (I hope)

At the beginning of last week I walked on a treadmill for 15 minutes. Then I ran (jogged) for 30 seconds and held my breath for the next day to see if there would be any aggravation to my (hopefully) healing stress fractured foot. There was none, thankfully.

By the end of last week I was walking on a treadmill for 20 minutes and then running (jogging) for 2 1/2 minutes. I still held my breath for a day to see if there would be any injury aggravation. Thankfully, there was none.

Sunday I walked on a treadmill for 20 minutes and then attempted to run for 10 minutes. After 5 minutes I was feeling pretty good so I increased the speed up to a blistering 6.0 MPH (10:00 min/mile). I made it 10 minutes and then stopped. My foot was a little sore, although in places other than where I was injured, and there was no pain. Still, I took a rest day yesterday to make sure there would be no ill effects of my pushing myself four times as long as I was running just a couple days previously.

Happily, my foot appears to be fine. Today I'm going to walk for 20 minutes on the treadmill and then I'm going to try to run for 15 minutes. And then I'm going to take a day and see where I'm at.

My plan is to add another 5 minutes every other day until I'm up to running for 30 minutes on a treadmill. I'm going to do that a couple times and if all goes well I plan on running outdoors for 30 minutes (or three miles, whichever comes first) on New Year's Day 2012.

Next week I have an appointment with my doctor. I've been weaning myself off my boot by not wearing it around the house in the mornings and evenings (and while I'm in the gym). In the 8.7 seconds of face-to-face time I'll get with the doctor I predict he'll either tell me to continue lengthening the time I'm not wearing the boot until I'm not wearing it at all, or he's going to tell me to toss it straight into the wood chipper. At any rate, provided things go for the next couple of weeks as they've gone for the last couple of weeks the lousy running year that was my 2011 will turn over and become 2012, my year of running redemption.

More than anything, I'm really looking forward to not having a reason to write about any injury I might have. That'll be nice for the new year.

While we're still in the holiday season, if anyone is thinking about getting me something for the awesome content I provide throughout the year I'd appreciate finding this stuffed in my stocking:


Click here if you can't see the embed.
Thanks to my running buddy Roger for passing it along!