Sudden foot pain Stress fracture?

Brad Marcus

Aside from some minor things that have popped up now and then, I've not had many running setbacks that have resulted from overuse injuries. I've been fairly durable. However, after a complete rest day on Monday, I woke up the next morning with pain in my foot when I put pressure on it. My immediate thought was plantar fasciitis, but I realized quickly that this wasn't the case. The pain is stemming from my the lateral side of my left foot, and hurts when I put any pressure on the heel side of the foot. Walking on the ball of my foot gives it some relief, and wearing shoes with a larger heal/toe offset helps too. Can't imagine running on this and hope to see the orthopedist today. Any ideas or advice on this? If it's a stress fracture, what is recovery time for an injury like this?

Doug Johnson

Brad, I'm sorry to hear about your diagnosis.  I hope you heal fast and you can get back to training soon.

You said you took a complete rest day Monday.  Was there any indication on Monday or during your last workout Sunday that you were injured, or did this just pop up when you woke up Tuesday?

Brad Marcus

Doug, no indication at all on that rest day. I felt good up until the next day when my foot hit the floor getting out of bed. Strange. Only thing possible is that my Sunday 10 miler included some 4x.5mi z5 work - that was a new addition to what I'd been doing. Z5 is tough to do on the roads near me since everything is rolling and up/down hills. Maybe I pushed harder than I'd thought. In a boot now. The doc says no running 4-6 weeks.

Ellen Sauter

I'm not a doctor, so take my information with a grain of salt!  I had a stress fracture is my heal a few years ago. Happened in the last two weeks while training for a marathon.  The doctor said the heal is not one to mess around with.  Standard 6 weeks in the boot - return to running slowly.  I was confused from your post if you saw the orthopedic doctor yet, so don't know if the stress fracture is the official diagnosis.  It could be your peroneal tendon, which runs along the outside of your foot and up your leg.  Hurts like crazy when you get tendonitis there!  Some ART massage (or something similar) can help with that.  Good luck - being injured sucks

Nate Parady

just recovered from a stress fracture back in Sept.  it was not in my Ankle area but near my shin.  

5 weeks of nothing but swimming.  Took 2.5 weeks for the pain to go away but waited another 2.5 weeks until i did a 'hop' test.  i.e. hopping up and down a few times to see if it hurts.  

then i did a 6 week build up that started with going for walks.  Then a progression of 8 minutes of walking then 2 minutes of running x 3 sets.  Slowly building up over the weeks until i was running 3 miles continuous.  
even with this slow build up i still had to back off for another week after getting a bit too aggressive on the bike.  I have a new found respect for bones after the entire experience.  It just takes time to heal.  If it doesn't heal completely it can break completely.  

Brad Marcus

Thanks for the input, team. This off season has been full of roadblocks for me to navigate. However, I got the results of the MRI back and the doc and I were both surprised to find that no stress fracture was present. He was able to see plantar fasciitis, heel spur, and some other damage from repetitive stress likely caused from running. I'm out of the boot now, and have been cautiously easing back in to short EZ runs on the treadmill. I'm definitely a bit "unbalanced", because I got some IT band pain on the other side after running yesterday. 

Bottom line is, no stress fracture = good news! Just need to be careful managing the other issues. Thank you again!