Here comes the pool . . .

Bone scan results:
I got the scan done on Sunday, and I asked the technician what the results were. My brother is an OBGYN and my sister-in-law, his wife, is a nurse, so I know better, but I did the following anyway: I threatened her into to telling me the results when she said she was not allowed to.

After the second scan was done, I told her I planned to run a good 10 Miles that day. She advised me not to, and I told her I would assume that all was good and I could continue running unless she told me what the results were.

She sighed and said, "The doctor looked at the images and said it looks like you have shin splints except they are in your femur bone. DON'T run 10 miles today."
"So it's not a fracture?"
"I'm just telling you what the doctor said. Your femur looks like it has shin splints."
Huh? Okay, so is this worse news? better news? I assumed better but I anxiously called my orthepedic Sunday (I guess they don't consider my bone scan emergency enough to page the doctor on a weekend--the nerve:) then I called him a few times on Monday. Finally got a call while grading papers, not by the doctor, but by someone who works in his office. She read the results and explained that I had "a stress reaction in my femur". I asked if that had anything to do with shin splints and she said they were similar. I guess, basically, I have a weakening of the outer layer of my femure bone-- a pre fracture condition. I started physical therapy yesterday--had some ultra sound done to my thigh and some manipulation tests where the therapist twisted, pushed, and pulled on my right leg and gauged by my reactions where and how bad my injury was. I'm pretty expressive so it was an easy test for him. He determined that it was more bone stress than soft tissue (muscle, etc.) because when he pulled by right foot towards him and asked me to resist I "expressed" the pain I felt. He said that the test had put pressure on my femur and the muscles in the back of my leg. Since I felt pain on the top of my thigh, he said that just flexing caused my femur to react and that I should put no weight on it all and maybe wait for pool running until, earliest, this Saturday and maybe not then cause I would have to use my muscles which would put strain on the femur.
So, he said to be an angel today and tom (angel meaning absolutely no weight--darn it, already broke that rule-- crutches are just so annoying) and he would see when I can start pool running.

Well, I already contacted another physical therapist to do some pool running starting next week for 3 days a week :) SO, I'll really try to stay off of my right leg entirely for at least the rest of today and tom, get more ultrasound and then start my pool running next Monday.

I really prayed that this was NOT a stress fracture, and I am thankful that it isn't.
Perhaps this is fate helping me learn how to cross train and become an even more effecient, stronger runner.
I also had to give up my marathon dream. I will now be running only a half marathon in Arizona. ARRGG-- I'm slowly coming to grips that this year will not be the year I run my first marathon. It's so hard, though, when you dream of this for months, work at it nearly every day, get better each run, feel good, and then just before you start really getting into some PR's you realize you have to let go of everything you psyched yourself up for. I am known to be stubborn and I'm even stubborn w/ myself. I can't help sort of beating myself up for not being smarter about my training. I really wish I could find a sports doctor who could analyze what I did to cause this. I gave Dr. Jurist all my theories but he said I was over analyzing that this just happens to runners. From what I've read, though, it doesn't just happen. It's usually the wrong shoes resulting in improper biomechanics while running or not enough strengthening of oposing muscles or following a training schedule that adds too many miles too soon, etc. I just want to know how I can prevent this from happening again after I recover and I can't do that if I can't figure out what I did wrong this time.

Okay, off to grade.